Politics and Press

Run-up to Iran??

In a bizarre repetition of the 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq we are seeing reports out of Washington that the intelligence community is insufficiently scary on Iran. With some of the same neocon crowd that gave us the Iraq fiasco calling for tactical strikes on Iran it is not too soon to remind ourselves of the “sexed-up” intelligence that led to the Iraq mess. And it is worth noting that a significant percentage of Americans still believe that we found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, making acceptance of a unilateral military strike against Iran at least minimally plausible. The failure of the press in the run-up to Iraq has been well documented – this is an opportunity for redemption. No Judith Millers, no Scooter Libbys, no blind rush to believe people in high places as they work to manipulate the press.