Lies have consequences, chimp

There's a very disturbing story in today's New York Times. It is disturbing on several levels: one, because it details fresh U.S. intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program, intelligence that would strongly suggest that they are developing warheads, and two, because it details the astonishing collapse in trust of and cooperation extended to this country as a result of chimp's Iraq vendetta. On another angle, given that this story can't have been written without the cooperation of the chimp's junta, I find myself wondering whether the Times can still be trusted, after the Judith Miller debacle, when it comes to a WMD story that has chimp's fingerprints on it.

Briefly, the article states that the United States is in possession of a laptop that allegedly originated within Iran's clandestine nuclear program. The laptop contains details of studies, done over several years, that lend themselves to the development of a nuclear warhead fitted to a medium-range missile already in the Iranian arsenal. These studies include ballistics tests that calculate a device exploding at 2,000 feet, which precludes conventional explosives and chemical/biological weapons both.

If this is true, it is a profoundly serious matter. Every government of any consequence in the world, including every permanent member of the UN Security Council, agrees without reservation that the regime in Teheran can not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. This prospect is not tolerable, and all measures, including war, are on the table to prevent it.

However, the air over the White House is presently heavy with chickens coming home to roost. I have always argued that the Iraq war was an awful idea based on the national interest alone; this disturbing new intelligence, and the reaction it is getting, illustrate just what a heavy price we're paying for chimp's vendetta against Saddam. Simply put, we haven't laid to rest the idea that the simian junta lied about the reasons for war, fabricated evidence, suppressed other intelligence, and really had nary a clue about what would happen after. Chimp gave a speech recently claiming that investigations had found no such manipulation; the Washington Post shot that claim down the very next day, in what must be considered a calculated slap.

Because of the R's inability to do a real investigation that would shed some light on, say, just how it was that forged documents could provide a basis for a claim made in a SOTU speech - not to mention our seeming 'inability' to find out just who forged them - the bar for other countries taking our word has been raised to dizzying heights. London, Moscow, Paris, and Beijing, not to mention the IAEA, are all refusing to accept the intelligence as real without further corroboration; this, in turn, the chimp is not willing to give, citing 'national security'. As to domestic support for active measures, that will prove hard to come by for much the same reasons.

In other words, because of the falsehoods that preceded the Iraq war, we currently find ourselves pretty much unable to do much about a real threat involving Islamists acquiring nuclear weapons. Our allies don't trust us; our military is overstretched and coming apart; and we're already broke. There's no 'there' there anymore, and we have precious few good options on the table.

Unless the chimp and his junta, not to mention the bootlickers in Congress, manage to clean up the mess that their credibility has become, and to do so quickly, we might find ourselves confronting the worst crisis since Cuba 1961 without effective tools. Given the state of the junta, the inability of its claqeurs to face reality - you can only claim no lies were spoken, no mistakes made, for so long before you compound the original mistakes beyond repair - the impending collapse of our military, and our demolished credibility, I fear we may find ourselves confronting yet another terrorist regime, after North Korea, armed with nukes. This would go into the history books as the legacy of the Bush years; but somehow, I can't take too much pleasure in the prospect.