Iran

The news of the day hands down is the news that Iran has been working on a second nuclear plant. This comes as a surprise to the world, but not the world leaders and intelligence communities:

American officials said that they had been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project. On Monday, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a “pilot plant” under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.

Of course this covert project that has been underway for several years is going to somehow become the fault of President Obama, and evidence of that lie has already started on Drudge:

The construction of this plant started and mostly occurred while George Bush was in the White House and has been no secret to the government, yet Drudge wants us to think that Iran pulled a quickie on the administration. If this is a surprise to Obama then it should be a down right shocker to Bush.

All the Republican critics of President Obama’s handling of Iran have resorted to the old Gipper offense. Mostly what they are saying is Obama should “do what Reagan did”. Richard Cohen, and I can’t believe I am saying this, sets the record straight on this:

Some of Obama's critics have faulted him for not doing what Ronald Reagan (belatedly) did following the fraudulent election in the Philippines in 1986. After some dithering, Reagan virtually forced President Ferdinand Marcos into exile. How neat. How not a precedent for Iran.

Marcos was, to exhume a dandy Cold War phrase, an "American lackey." The Philippines itself was a former American colony. We knew the country. Hell, at one time, we virtually owned it.

The equivalent would be Obama having to break up a prison riot, and he should do what Reagan did to stop a school yard fight. There is no comparing the two items. But this is to be expected from a party that has raised Ronald Reagan to the level of a deity.

What if we had President John McCain right now? With everything going on in Iran, I wouldn’t doubt one bit if we would be at war. No matter what Obama says about Iran, McCain thinks he is being “too soft”. Anything short of him saying “upon my orders our troops have entered Iran to remove the regime” would be too soft for McCain. I keep thinking back to his old “bomb Iran” moment and thank my lucky stars that he didn’t win.

Something interesting is happening that isn’t getting much attention. There seems to be a growing fracture in the GOP over how President Obama is handling the situation in Iran. On one side you have people like John McCain complaining that we aren’t meddling enough in the election, then on the other side Republicans like Mel Martinez, Bob Corker and John Thune are commending the President on his handling of the situation. To those Republicans able to show support for the President, they are now joined by a heavy hitter name in the GOP when it comes to foreign affairs – Henry Kissinger.

I truly believe for some Republicans they are genetically disposed to saying President Obama is failing, no matter what he does. Obama could fix global warming, get rid of our deficit, totally turn the economy around to a point of prosperity that we have never seen and totally defeat al Qaeda while bringing peace and democracy to the entire Middle East. With all these successes people like John McCain would still consider President Obama a failure. That’s why the media shouldn’t pay them any attention.

I’ve had a couple people email and ask me why I haven’t really said anything about Iran. Well there’s a simple reason for that, but I won’t explain it. Instead I’ll let TBogg explain:

There was a disputed election in Iran and thousands of political bloggers who have never lived outside of the city in which they were born and who have absolutely no experience in Middle East affairs will now tell you what this all means, how this will impact the region, and what to expect by drawing upon their extensive background in World of Warcraft and a hardly used MCSE certification.

‘Nuff said….

Dick Cheney has joined the ranks of the “tinfoil hat brigade”:

"Everybody's in a giant conspiracy to achieve a different objective than the one we want to achieve," Cheney said.

The negotiations are "bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible" in threatening military action against Iran, he said.

"Most of the other nations out there are willing to live with a nuclear-armed Iran" he said, citing France, Germany and the United Kingdom in particular.

So the entire planet is getting together to conspire against us? Wow – ok. Even if that is the truth, then doesn’t it say something about our position – like maybe that we are wrong?

Whatever the answer, one thing we do know. Dick Cheney is now amongst the ranks of other conspiracy nut jobs, including the 9/11 people. I wonder how he likes being grouped with the same people who blamed him for the deadliest attack on our nation?

President Obama has sent out a video message to the world, but mostly it is targeted to the people of Iran.

Ahmadinejad wants to kill Israelis. Now John McCain wants to kill Iranians. Were these two separated at birth?

It is all but inevitable now. Iran is threatening to cut oil production and that drove oil prices up to almost $127 a barrel today.

Again - April Fool's:

The Iranian general who helped broker an end to nearly a week of fighting between Iraqi government forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen in southern Iraq is an unlikely peacemaker.

Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who helped U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders negotiate a deal with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to stop the fighting in Iraq's largely Shiite south, is named on U.S. Treasury Department and U.N. Security Council watch lists for alleged involvement in terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and missile technology.

His role as peacemaker, which McClatchy first reported Sunday, underscores Iran's entrenched political power and its alliances in Iraq, according to analysts.

All we hear about from this administration is how Iran is trying to destabilize Iraq and works against us. Now we see it was an Iranian general who put an end to last week's fighting. Just another case of believe the opposite of what your told from Bush.

Cliff has all the details. There are some very compelling reasons. What we need is a President who will sit down and talk with Iran face to face. The attitude of some that "we are too good to sit down with them" is certainly not helping our situation.

Now this is sounding familiar:

The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency presented documents Monday that diplomats said indicate Iran may have focused on a nuclear weapons program after 2003 - the year that a U.S. intelligence report says such work stopped.

Iran again denied ever trying to make such arms. Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, dismissed the information showcased by the body as "forgeries."

He and other diplomats, all linked to the IAEA, commented after a closed-door presentation to the agency's 35-nation board of intelligence findings from the U.S. and its allies and other information purporting to show Iranian attempts to make nuclear arms.

I'm not saying that Iran's claim isn't bogus, but we all know about false documents regarding nuclear ambitions and leading us into war.

And we don't like it:

Iran is to launch two more rockets into space in the next few months, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Monday, after a firing of a rocket earlier this month sparked international concern.

"Two other rockets will be launched so that we can then send a satellite into space," Ahmadinejad said at a rally in Tehran broadcast live on state television.

"We home that Iran's first home-produced satellite will be launched in the summer," he added, reiterating a prediction made by other Iranian officials who said the satellite would be launched in May.

[SNIP]

The United States, which has led international efforts to pressure Iran to freeze controversial nuclear activities, has said Tehran's activities in space risked further isolating the Islamic republic.

I guess they don't know that we own outer space. It seems like the more we say "Iran can't do that", the more they are out to do it. Perhaps a new approach, like talking to them, is in order.

Undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns is stepping down. Burns is also one of the chief warmongers when it comes to Iran and has been referred to as the "chief American strategist on Iran".

An interesting look at how that may be the case when it comes to our "close call" with that Iranian boat. This really sounds like something Congress should be questioning.