Yesterday we asked whether the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who scared the country with a long piece on the imminent threat of Iranian nukes last September, is going to cover the new line out of Israel: Iran is not a threat. Well Jeffrey Goldberg did:
I think it is fair to say that the combination of sanctions and subterfuge has definitively set back Iran's nuclear program by at least one and perhaps as many as four years...
How do you like that for a "definitive" mathematical statement? 1-4 years. That kind of fuzzy math makes us wonder whether he has any idea what he is really talking about. But this is Goldberg's game. More math, from the Atlantic last September:
The reasoning offered by Israeli decision makers was uncomplicated: Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability...
Robert Gates, the American defense secretary, said in June [2010] at a meeting of NATO defense ministers that most intelligence estimates predict that Iran is one to three years away from building a nuclear weapon. “In Israel, we heard this as nine months from June—in other words, March of 2011,”
Weiss's emphasis. So last September he said Iran would have nukes in March, and now he's saying that it's years away. Wow. Is this a reliable narrator? Oh and this from the Atlantic:
[By attacking Iran, the] Israelis will also state that they believe they have a reasonable chance of delaying the Iranian nuclear program for at least three to five years.
We have no idea what these numbers mean. And neither does Goldberg.
Blankfort picks up on the above reference to "subterfuge." And quotes Goldberg:
much credit goes to the Mossad and the CIA and the Brits and God knows who else, who are working separately and in tandem to subvert the Iranian program, and a great deal of credit must go to, yes, President Barack Obama, who has made stopping Iran one of his two or three main foreign policy priorities over the past two year."
Says Blankfort: Of course, Goldberg will not mention the several assassinations of Iran scientists that have been carried out by Mossad (just as in the past they got away with murdering Iraqi and Egyptian scientists) which is why Dagan is so sure that Iran's bomb making plans have been delayed.
why are you regurgitating propaganda ‘plan b’, that iran does not have a functioning nuclear weapons program on account of successful israeli/american covert operations? objective sources, including american diplomatic cables, all indicate that iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program. so what are these scientists that mossad is allegedly murdering, up to? couldn’t this just as easily be industrial espionage, subversion of the iranian economy, as it is subversion of a nuclear arms program?
thanks marc b, smart
Pretty much ANY country “could” make a nuke in 4 years. Remember, it took Pakistan only 6 years in the 1960s and to make nuclear missiles. In fact according to Green Peace and the IAEA, right now 40 countries could rapidly make nukes and another 120 could do so given more time. This is a nonsense charge meant for scaremongering.
helpful, thx
Welcome – read IranAffairs.com
Seems to me that the Israelis want to keep the kettle of “iranian nukes” on a constant boil. Sometimes they have to increase the heat and talk about “imminent” attacks and flying gas chambers, and sometimes they have to lower the heat by taking credit for supposed delays to Iran’s nuclear weapons program when there’s no actual evidence of any such program. (Too much hype and there’s a risk that people would stop taking it seriously.)
Eliminating Iran would be a disaster for Netanyahu, who needs it as a focus for his fearmongering brand of politics.
I would say, “If Iran did not exist, Netanyahu would have to create it,” except that in many ways, Iran as it exists today is in fact the creation of decades of Israeli/US hostility.
Is there room for a bit of optimism here? Could this ‘we can relax for a while’ rhetoric indicate that the ‘Bomb, bomb Iran’ campaign has failed and that its directors are cutting their losses?
RE: “the ‘Bomb, bomb Iran’ campaign has failed” – MHughes976
MY REPLY: It appears to be a “no go” for the remainder of Obama’s (first) term, but the neocons will continue beating the war drums in the hope that a right-wing Republican will win the next presidential election. Consequently, we dare not relax!
Jeffrey Goldberg is a propagandist for the government of Israel.
“Once IDF, always IDF!”
I think it’s possible that Dagan’s “revelation” was prompted by an Israeli realization that pushing the US into another unnecessary war would mean the end of unlimited US support.
I seem to recall that Iran has been three years from making a nuclear weapon since 1984.
Is my memory playing tricks on me, or is the Persian calendar markedly different from ours?
No, you’re quite right. In 1984 Jane’s predicted that Iran would have nukes in 2 years. In 1992 a Congressional report predicted that Iran already had nuclear weapons. See link to iranaffairs.com
>> In 1992 a Congressional report predicted that Iran already had nuclear weapons.
Maybe the report was referring only to “nookyoolur” weapons… ;-)