[Mb-civic] Wag the Camel By MAUREEN DOWD

[Michael Butler]

The New York Times
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April 12, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Wag the Camel
By MAUREEN DOWD

Washington

Talk about a fearful symmetry.

Iran was whipping up real uranium while America was whipped up by fake
uranium.

Obsessed with going to war against a Middle East country that had no nuclear
weapon, the Bush administration lost focus on and leverage over a Middle
East country hurtling toward a nuclear weapon.

That's after the Bush crew lost focus on and leverage over an Asian country
that says it has now produced a whole bunch of nuclear weapons.

To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if brains were elastic, these guys wouldn't
have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet.

While Dick Cheney was getting booed as he threw out the first pitch for the
Nationals ‹ it bounced in the dirt and Scooter wasn't even there to catch it
‹ Iran was jubilantly welcoming itself to the nuclear club and spitting in
the eye of the U.S. and U.N.

Speaking before a mural of fluttering white doves, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad bragged that his scientists had concocted enriched uranium. They
will now churn out nuclear fuel as fast as they can.

Are they making a bomb? Nah, said the Iranian president, furthest thing from
their minds.

Are we going to bomb them before they can get a bomb? Nah, said the American
president, furthest thing from our minds.

The nuclear doves announcement was embarrassing for Mr. Bush, who had said
on Monday that he was determined to prevent Iran from getting the know-how
to enrich uranium. But the Persian logic cannot be faulted. If you pretend
to have W.M.D., the U.S. may come and get you. Ask Saddam. If you really
have W.M.D., you're bulletproof. Ask Kim Jong Il.

I'm sure the mad-as-cheese Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot believe his luck. The
down-the-rabbit-hole Bush administration is tied up in Iraq, helping to
create a theocracy friendly to Iran while leaving Iran to do whatever it
wants on W.M.D.

In this week's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes about the Pentagon planning
for a possible strike against the nutty "apocalyptic Shiites," as the former
C.I.A. agent Robert Baer calls the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad and his
chorus line of clerics.

Mr. Hersh quotes a source close to the Pentagon saying that Mr. Bush
believes "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy." Which makes sense, in
a wag-the-camel way, since saving Iraq is not going to be his legacy.

The Bush hawks, who have already proven themselves cultural cretins in Iraq,
seem to still be a long way from that humble foreign policy they promised. A
former defense official told Mr. Hersh that the plan was based on an
administration belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will
humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and
overthrow the government." The official's reaction: "What are they smoking?"

Just as Rummy dismissed questions back in August 2002 about a possible
invasion of Iraq as a media "frenzy" ‹ even as plans were well under way ‹
the defense chief shrugged off The New Yorker story as "Henny Penny, the sky
is falling."

Noting that the president is "on a diplomatic track," He Who Should Be Fired
said that while W. was obviously concerned about Iran as a country that
supports terrorists and wants W.M.D., "it is just simply not useful to get
into fantasy land."

Yes, the reality-based community of journalists should stay out of fantasy
land, which is already overcrowded with hallucinatory Bushies.

W. defended his authorization of a leak to rebut Joseph Wilson's contention
that the administration had hyped up a story about Niger selling Saddam
uranium. "I wanted people to see the truth," the president said.

Of course, sometimes in order to help people see the truth, you've got to
tell them a big fat lie.

As David Sanger and David Barstow wrote in The Times on Sunday, Scooter's
leak about Saddam's efforts to obtain uranium had already been debunked by
the time he leaked it. Colin Powell had told The Times that intelligence
agencies were "no longer carrying it as a credible item" by early 2003, when
the secretary of state was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the
U.N. Only Scooter and Dick Cheney were willing to use a faulty bit of
intelligence to defend their war scam.

With Watergate, reporters followed the money. With Monica, Ken Starr
followed the stain. With W. and his bananas second banana, Patrick
Fitzgerald is following the uranium. All he needs is a Geiger counter.