Disinformation Station

It is disheartening to watch establishment media sources continually pump the Iranian nuclear weapons program story without actually providing any hard facts to support their assertions. Haaretz reported that the IAEA, the international nuclear watchdog group, was suppressing evidence of a covert weapons program. Their sources for this charge? Unnamed "senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials." The story goes on to relate how Mohamed El'Baradei, the IAEA Director General has repeatedly stated that there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. This echoes the findings of the 2007 National Intelligence Assessment, which stated that any primitive nuclear weapons program undertaken by the Islamic Republic had ended in 2003. However, lazy journalists shirk their responsibility for due diligence and candor and continue to cite "unnamed sources" on the same level as responsible, credible officials such as El'Baradei. (See Jeff Huber's blog for a great, always humorous article on the reliance of our press corps on the ubiquitous "anonymous senior official" to further a point.)

What is more telling and disheartening, given the drum beating for war from both the Israelis and parts of the Washington establishment, is that Americans overwhelmingly believe that Iran is developing nuclear weapons in addition to a civilian nuclear program. A Gallup poll taken in January of 2006 indicated that 80% of Americans believed that Iran was in fact developing nuclear weapons despite repeated evidence to the contrary. Perhaps this could be excused by the fact that the 2007 NIE had not been declassified, however, it is likely that if such a poll were conducted the today, the results would be the same. However, with interventionists on both sides of the isle spouting off on the spectre of an Iranian bomb and the need to intervene, it's not surprising.

Spirit of the Age

I covered the first phase of this story two months back. Given my last post about our aspirations to turn Afghanistan into a functioning, pluralistic democracy, I thought this story was especially timely.

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some of the country's Shias, which make up around 20% of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday's election, which is likely to be a close run thing, according to a poll released yesterday.

I'm not so naive as to believe that a politician would sell out the rights of a constituent in order to court support from his opposition. However, the more salient point is that this wholesale enslavement of the women of Afghanistan is utterly and completely alien to western ideals of individual rights, ideals upon which the foundation of our experiment in democracy are founded. The seeds of a modern, democratic government will not find roots in the barren soil of Afghan backwardness.

Recipe for Sucess

Does anyone else see a problem with this statement?

The Pentagon presented a grim portrait of the Afghanistan war Thursday, offering no assurances about how long Americans will be fighting there or how many U.S. combat troops it will take to win.

"In the intelligence business, we always used to categorize information in two ways, secrets and mysteries," Gates, a former CIA director, told a Pentagon news conference.

He added: "Mysteries were those where there were too many variables to predict. And I think that how long U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan is in that area."

The tiniest operations in the military require deliverables and milestones. Why is this conflict in Afghanistan different? In the midst of a fiscal crisis and a soaring deficit can we afford more and more years of war? Can we afford to continue an open ended commitment to pacify a place where many have tried and nearly all have failed? I want your opinions. Comments and ideas are all welcome.