The 800 pound gorilla has left the room. Posted by Moira Whelan

We did a bit of work over here today looking at the Iran NIE findings that were just released. Rand Beers and Jon Wolfsthal weighed in with their thoughts, and I thought they both made a point that is timely and forward looking: We have a chance to approach things differently. The NIE finds that there is not, in fact, an 800 pound gorilla in the room in the form of a nuclear program...always good news.

Unfortunately, there is still a 5-ton elephant in the room (in the form of the Republicans) so it's unclear the Bushies will actually seize this opportunity. Afterall, they have been knowingly spewing rhetoric that was contrary to their intelligence for quite some time.

Comments

[Peace]

It wont stop the Bushies and the neoconservatives because they attacked Iraq even though the UN inspectors told them that there was no WMDS. Also fabricating a threat is nothing new to the neoconservative movement as seen in Ann Cahn's book Killing Detente, which states how the neocons exegerrated the Soviet threat in the seventies. As true believers in Leo Strauss the neoconservatives believe that a certain amount of deceit is necessary in order to acheive American hegemony.

[Don Bacon]

Excellent description.

The US has had designs on Iran at least since 1953, when the CIA and the Brits overthrew PM Mossadegh. Now the US government will be forced to fall back on a different ploy for sustaining Iran as Enemy #1. (Every Great Power needs an enemy.) Will it be the old standby, Iranian influence in our grand Iraq democracy demonstration (overlooking the arming of Anbar gangs) or possibly a false flag attack on a US Navy ship? Cheney's heart may skip another beat as they try to come up with an alternate strategy at War Central HQ.

Whatever. It does keep Americans focused on stupid stuff rather than on their real domestic problems. In that sense it's successful.