Face the Nation (7/14/13)
Claims that “Iran is building a nuclear weapon any day now” go back several decades. The Christian Science Monitor pointed this out (11/8/11) in a web feature titled, “Imminent Iran Nuclear Threat? A Timeline of Warnings Since 1979.” Muhammad Sahimi noted (AntiWar.com, 5/5/10): “In 1997 Israel predicted a new date for Iran having a nuclear bomb: 2005.” And blogger Nima Shirazi has an exhaustive catalog of similar statements about Iran’s imminent nuclear bombs.
Given all of that history, it would be wise to be skeptical of any new claims.
Which brings us to the CBS Sunday show Face the Nation (7/14/13), where host Bob Schieffer announced at the top of the show:
Only on CBS, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran is dangerously close to having a nuclear weapon. And is moving fast to develop an intercontinental missile that could deliver it to the United States.
Schieffer would later add, before the interview began, that they would discuss “the big story overseas”—which is “Iran and its continuing effort to build a nuclear weapon.”
Actually, Iran is not known to be continuing any such effort–they’ve long denied it, and the view of U.S. intelligence agencies is that Iran is not known to be pursuing nuclear weapons.
But you’d hardly get that impression from the CBS interview. It began with Netanyahu explaining that the Iranians “have taken heed of the red line that I sketched out at the U.N.”—a reference to the speech where he brandished an absurd cartoon drawing of a bomb.
He raised the stakes by claiming that Iran is
building ICBMs to reach the American mainland within a few years. They’re pursuing an alternate route of plutonium, that is enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. One route, plutonium. Another route, ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles to reach you.
There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of these missile claims; and even if they were building such weapons, they would be 5 to 10 years away, according to some experts (Wired, 2/24/12).
If Schieffer was frustrated by anything during the discussion, it was the argument that the United States government should be doing more to back up Israel. He told Netanyahu, “Well, the United States has said that we won’t tolerate a nuclear Iran. What else can we say?”
Near the end of the interview, Schieffer asked:
Well, how close are they right now? Are they within a month? Are they within six months of having the capability? How close do you think they are?
As nuclear physicist Yousaf Butt has argued (Reuters, 2/22/13), if that’s the question, then the answer so far is that we don’t know that Iran is trying to build a bomb at all. And, more importantly, there is no reason to treat Netanyahu as if he would know this:
Unfortunately, Netanyahu’s latest claims about the time line to an Iranian bomb is not a one-off aberration. He has been making such assertions for decades. So it pays to take his views with a boulder of salt.
In 1992, Netanyahu, then a parliamentarian, said Iran was three to five years from a bomb. Then, as now, he was urging the United States to do Israel’s dirty work—and, perhaps, suffer the possible blowback—saying the alleged threat must be “uprooted by an international front headed by the U.S.”
Netanyahu’s crystal ball on Iran was cloudy 20 years ago—and it seems still cloudy now.
Netanyahu’s overheated rhetoric generated stories about the Iranian threat in the New York Times and Washington Post today—which is probably the point of him going on Sunday chat shows and making such claims. It doesn’t hurt that these venues are unlikely to push back and ask tough questions.
“Well, the United States has said that we won’t tolerate a nuclear Iran. What else can we say?”
A rather revealing choice of pronouns, wouldn’t you say?
LIke its lies about Iraqi WMDs, America’s current disinformation about Iranian WMDs is merely a propaganda pretext for the United States of Aggression to advance its aggressive designs in the Middle East, which are not fundamentally about the pretext issue of WMD proliferation.
America seeks to subjugate Iran not because of its nuclear program but because of it status as an independent energy producer and opponent of American/Israel hegemony in the Middle East.
Also, this entire fake debate about Iranian “nukes” avoids more important issues like:
What right do America and Israel have to wield nuclear weapons?
Who appointed America the judge and jury of what country can have nuclear weapons?
And most importantly, America and its allies like Israel are the preeminent threat to peace in the Middle East.
After all, America has attacked multiple nations in the past several years with routine bombing if not outright invasion and conquest of nations around the world–murdering and maiming millions of people as a result!
Yet, this same America has the nerve to demonize other nations (in this case Iran) as a threat!
Welcome to the Orwellian world that is America.
These issues are rarely if ever admitted by America or its media including supposed progressive alternative media like FAIR.
America
These issues are rarely if ever admitted by America or its media including supposed progressive alternative media like FAIR. – cte
These issues are rarely if ever admitted by America or its media including supposed progressive alternative media like FAIR. – cte
Really? That is news, since I can recall FAIR and KPFA making these same points over the last 20 years that have been reading and listening to them.
@cte: Your comment is one of the best I have seen on our federal government’s current aggression and the motivations for it. A pity it is surrounded by grammatically challenged and comprehensible reactions to old news.
FAIR might improve the discussion here by providing its readers with reply and recommend options.
Seymour Hersh’s dismissal of Netanyahu’s claims are as convincing as the assertions made in this articel:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/21/seymour_hersh_propaganda_used_ahead_of
In the above video Hersh shows that US spies, after comprehensive on the field operations couldn’t find any evidence of the existence of the Iranian nuclear weapon program. In Hersh’s critique such a narrative is found to be a ‘fantasy’.
He indirectly implies maybe an evil intentional ‘hysteria’ is spread around the world regarding the issue of ‘Iranian Nuclear Bomb’.
My observations has convinced me that ‘Iran’s threat’, among other things, is used to divert attention from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands giving Israel enough time to extend settlements to the point where realization of 2 state solution becomes implausible.
In the UN speech where Netanyahu drew the ‘Red Line’, he only after couple of minutes, raised the grave danger of Iran and continued elaborating about it until the very end of the speech.
Not a sing world was uttered about the grand issue of the ‘Occupation’.
Israel has more than 500 nukes so what he is talking about so Israel the first country that brought nukes to middle east , Israel have all the u.s weapons , Israel is attaking Syria ,Iraq , Lebanon palastenian …….so what Israel wants more ????????