European Fallout from NIE Report On Iran

Less than one month ago President Bush warned that a nuclear weapons program in Iran could well lead to "World War III".  Now the 16 US intelligence agencies have reported that Iran ceased its weapons program more than four years ago.  There is ample evidence that the president was aware of this changed assessment as he was ratcheting up his bellicose rhetoric.  The New York Times puts it rather succinctly in its lead editorial this morning:

"After Iraq and Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, it is hard to imagine that this administration could do any more damage to this country’s credibility. Then it does."

One of the results of this new blow to the credibility of the Bush administration is that its rationale for building missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland is now pretty much undermined.  These stations were ostensibly needed to ward off a threat from Iranian nukes.  Now Malte Lehming asks in Der Tagesspiegel:

Und das US-Raketenabwehrsystem, das in Polen und Tschechien stationiert werden soll, aber die Nato entzweit und Russland erbost? Über dessen Zukunft wird wohl bald neu gestritten. (And what of the missile defense system that is supposted to be stationed in Poland and the Czech Republic, but which has divided Nato and angered Russia? There will be renewed argument about the future of these plans.)

Like many of us, Karl Grobe in the Frankfurter Rundschau is asking the question: what did the president know and when did he know it?

If they did know, then Bush's bellicose talk in October about the danger of a third world war was at the very least reckless. This would mean the plans to install missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic as quickly as possible were ideologically motivated rather than rationally justifiable - whereby the ideological cocktail had two ingredients besides the professed explanation: the intention of showing the Russians who's boss once and for all, and the desire to split Europe up into the evil old states and the good new ones. Perhaps the references to Teheran were a means to this end. Regardless of whether it was the result of ignorance - which boils down to recklessness - or superior knowledge, the Bush Administration owes some explanations to its European allies - but not along the lines of those given by Bush on Tuesday that his administration is always right.

Bush does "owe some explanations" to Europe, but first he must explain his incomprehensible actions to the American people.

Comments

[Herr Cook]

Herr Vickrey!
Sie haben rechts! Dies ist ein sehr interessantes und wichtiges problem.Das "Bush Reich" soll sich zu allem eklären. Unglücklicherweise wissen wir das sie warscheinlich es tun nicht werden. Sie wollen keine realistische Lösung. Das ist ihnen sheiBegal. Das Bush Reich sind alle Lügner und wollen nur mehre Krieg für Geld