Attacking Iran for Israel?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is at her mushroom-cloud hyperbolic best, and this time Iran is the target. Her claim last week that "the policies of Iran constitute perhaps the single greatest challenge to American security interests in the Middle East and around the world" is simply too much of a stretch.

To gauge someone's reliability, one depends largely on prior experience. Sadly, Rice's credibility suffers in comparison with Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Basing his judgment on the findings of IAEA inspectors in Iran, ElBaradei reports that there is no evidence of an active nuclear weapons program there.

If this sounds familiar, it is in fact déjà vu. ElBaradei said the same thing about Iraq before it was attacked. But three days before the invasion, American nuclear expert Dick Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert, "I think Mr. ElBaradei is, frankly, wrong."

Here we go again. As in the case of Iraq, U.S. intelligence has been assiduously looking for evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran, but, alas, in vain. Burned by the bogus "proof" adduced for Iraq -- the uranium from Africa, the aluminum tubes -- the administration has shied away from fabricating nuclear-related "evidence." Are Bush and Cheney again relying on the Rumsfeld dictum, that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?" There is a simpler answer.

Cat out of the bag

The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, let the cat out of the bag while speaking at the American Jewish Committee luncheon on Oct. 22. In remarks paralleling those of Rice, Meridor said Iran is the chief threat to Israel. Heavy on the chutzpah, he then served gratuitous notice on Washington that countering Iran's nuclear ambitions will take a "united United States in this matter," lest the Iranians conclude, "come January '09, they have it their own way."

Meridor stressed that "very little time" remained to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. How so? Even were there to be a nuclear program hidden from the IAEA, no serious observer expects Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon much sooner than five years from now.

Truth be told, every other year since 1995 U.S. intelligence has been predicting that Iran could have a nuclear weapon in about five years. It has become downright embarrassing -- like a broken record, punctuated only by so-called "neoconservatives" like James Woolsey, who in August publicly warned that the United States may have no choice but to bomb Iran in order to halt Tehran's nuclear weapons program.

Woolsey, self-described "anchor of the Presbyterian wing of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs," put it this way: "I'm afraid that within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they [the Iranians] could have the bomb."

The day before Ambassador Meridor's unintentionally revealing remark, Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated, "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." That remark followed closely on President George W. Bush's apocalyptic warning of World War III, should Tehran acquire the knowledge to produce a nuclear weapon.

The Israelis appear convinced they have extracted a promise from Bush and Cheney that they will help Israel nip Iran's nuclear program in the bud before they leave office. That is why the Israeli ambassador says there is "very little time" -- less than 15 months.

Never mind that there is no evidence that the Iranian nuclear program is any more weapons-related than the one Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld persuaded President Gerald Ford to approve in 1976. Westinghouse and General Electric successfully lobbied for approval to sell the Shah for $6.4 billion the kind of nuclear facilities that Iran is now building, but the deal fell through when the Shah was ousted in 1979.