America Changes Direction on Iran Friday, December 07, 2007

Ever since the report came out that declared that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program, I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was clearly wrong here, but I could not figure out the angle. Why had everything changed, suddenly? What advantage did our government derive from this about-face in policy?

Well, thanks to this brilliant Op-Ed piece in the Times, it all makes sick sense. It's more smoke and mirrors for the benefit of manipulating the image of this administration and their people:

We should be suspicious of any document that suddenly gives the Bush administration a pass on a big national security problem it won’t solve during its remaining year in office. Is the administration just washing its hands of the intractable Iranian nuclear issue by saying, "If we can’t fix it, it ain’t broke"?

Looked at in this way, suddenly the report makes more sense. But — call me a cynic — I don't think this rationalization goes far enough. There's more to this move than allowing the Bush-Cheney Cabal to cover their asses. Suddenly all of the current policies on Iran seem wrongheaded, and of course the administration knew this would happen. So the only explanation is that there have been some negotiations going on between our two countries and that a deal was struck. But the deal would be unpopular here in the States, and so this report was issued to justify policy changes.

The American people are lied to.

The Iranian people are lied to.

The US gets what it wants.

Iran gets what it wants.

So it goes.