Iran Nuclear threat a hoax? Or not?

Iran. Nuclear weapons. Sigh. Iran is part of the so-called axis of evil, which included Iraq and North Korea. North Korea has been pronounced to be a threat, they recently set off a small nuclear weapon of some kind, and this week Pres. George W. Bush was reported to have repeated the statement that growth of nuclear capabilities in North Korea is a major problem. Ditto the growth of nuclear capabilities in Iran.

Yet, the same week Congress finally voted approval for a deal Pres. Bush made with India to provide them with some nuclear technology. It's funny how India has nuclear weapons, is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaties, and the U.S. is providing them with nuclear technology. It's especially funny how Iran is a signatory to the non-proliferation treaties, has not yet created nuclear weapons, yet the U.S. is threatening to invade Iran. Oh, and Pakistan, the country that was the worst proliferator of nuclear technology, without whom North Korea would not have gotten anywhere, is a partner to the U.S.

Very strange.

The process with Iran is seemingly the same as it was for Iraq leading up to the 2003 invasion of that country. There are shady exile groups making bold claims against the Iranian leadership, just as there were for Iraqi leadership. There are pronouncements and demonization by the U.S. leadership, just as there was for Iraq. etc. Yet we learned later that the whole story spun about Iraq was a total fabrication, and that seemingly the U.S. leadership knew they were lying while they were spinning their web of lies. The question is, how truthful are they being about Iran, or is this story just another big web of lies?

Hersh: CIA Analysis Finds Iran Not Developing Nuclear Weapons Reports that a classified CIA document finds there is no developing nuclear threat in Iran. Further, the Bush Administration realized before the election that it's likely they would lose, and that Cheney threatened that their loss "would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran" that "the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions" preventing Congress from getting in their way.

Hurm.. sounds like a constitutional crisis brewing here.

The system of checks and balances are supposed to keep one branch of U.S. government from riding roughshod over the others. But the last few years we've had a Congress that rubber stamped everything the administration told them to do. And among those things were suspensions or deletions of some of the checks and balances.

The Next Act is a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh that was used as the source for the above article.

35-nations meet on denying Iran nuclear assistance "A push by Western nations to deny Iran technical help in building a plutonium-producing reactor has gathered enough support to be approved by the 35-nation board of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, diplomats said. Still, differences both within the Western camp and more broadly among different factions on the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on how harshly to punish Iran for its nuclear defiance persisted on the eve of the opening meeting Monday, the diplomats said. "

IAEA likely to block Iran atom aid at meeting "The U.N. nuclear watchdog is likely at a politically charged meeting this week to put on ice Iran's request for help with a heavy-water plant due to fears it could yield plutonium for atom bombs, diplomats say. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board urged Iran in February to "reconsider" the Arak reactor project. But Tehran vows to complete it and applied for IAEA technical expertise to ensure the plant meets safety standards. Although IAEA approval of such requests is usually routine, Western board members say the Arak case must be rejected given Iran's record of evading IAEA non-proliferation inspections and its defiance of U.N. demands to stop enriching uranium. "