Valerie Plame and Iran Nukes

Josh and Lindsay are slightly at odds on how to read the recent report stating that our intelligence on Iran is somewhere between sucky and crappy.

Lindsay sees it as indicative of the idiocy of our foreign policy establishment while Josh reads it as more of a scare tactic in service of the great Fear as Invasion-Motivator game sweeping the nation.

Here's another interesting wrinkle, from Juan Cole:

First of all, former CIA professional Larry Johnson and Jim Marcinkowski point out that the Republicans have a lot of damn gall. It was high members of this Republican administration who leaked to the Iranians and the whole world the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative who spent her professional career combatting the proliferation of WMD and was, at the time she was betrayed by Traitor Rove and his merry band, working on Iran. Had it not been for these Republican figures, none of whom has yet been punished in any way for endangering US national security, we might know more about Iran.

In any case, here's the good news and the bad news:

GOOD: Whatever we do or don't know about Iran in terms of intelligence, the fact remains, as Josh wrote: Iran is still at least 5-10 years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

BAD: After assessing the rhetoric and BS reports, Juan Cole concludes: "Folks, we are being set up again." (JuanCole)