Time’s Ticking Clock on War With Iran
Peter Hart, FAIR, Mar 8 2013
Can you threaten to start a war to stop something that doesn’t exist? Open the Mar 11 issue of Time Magazine and you’ll see the headline “The Path to War: Inside Obama’s Struggle to Stop an Iranian Nuke.” The piece is a behind-the-scenes peek at the debate inside the government about the steps the US is willing to take to “keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” The idea that Iran is after a weapon is repeated numerous times: “the global effort to prevent Tehran from getting a weapon,” and the US perhaps “using military force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” We’re even told that Obama “offered to let Iran keep a peaceful nuclear program. But Iran’s leaders rebuffed Obama’s efforts.” Nowhere does Time’s Massimo Calabresi mention one rather inconvenient fact: There is no evidence that Iran is actually pursuing a nuclear weapon. Regular inspections have failed to turn up any evidence of that. Instead, we read things like this:
Iran itself has slowed down its efforts, converting some enriched uranium to a form that can be used only in research, not in weapons.
This is treated as evidence that Iran is heading towards its nuclear weapons more slowly. This is alarming, especially since the article is about whether the US will launch a military attack on Iran. Time ominously warns that soon “time will run out,” and tells us that “the Pentagon has launched the largest buildup of forces in the Gulf since the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.” It closes by noting that “Obama will soon face the hardest decision of his presidency.” Time faces a decision too: whether or not it wants to repeat the mistake of the Iraq War by treating allegations about another country’s weapons as if they are facts.
These amassed by Stephen Gowans
- “Are (the Iranians) trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.” – Panetta
- “Mossad agrees with US intelligence assessments” (that Iran is not now pursuing a nuclear weapon.)
- “We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.” – Clapper, Jan 31 2012
- US officials say there is no hard and clear evidence that Iran has resumed work on the military components necessary to build a bomb.
- Concerning the charge that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon: “It isn’t the absence of evidence, it’s the evidence of an absence, certain things are not being done,” said one former intelligence official.
- Even as the IAEA said in a new report that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, US intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.
- How could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program? — George W Bush
- Iran appears to be keeping its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium to a level below the amount necessary to build a single weapon.
- US intelligence officials have said they have no evidence that Iran’s top leaders have decided to take the final steps toward a weapon.
- Clapper says there’s no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Petraeus, Panetta and Dempsey agree.
- Lindsey Graham: “Do you have doubt about the Iranians’ intention when it comes to making a nuclear weapon?” Clapper: “I do.”
Niqnaq 