Bush Still Bending the Truth about Iran

In President Bush's press conference on Iran today, he said the turning point in recent U.S.-Iranian relations was the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the summer of 2005. I beg to differ. Let's review Iranian actions up until that election. After 9/11, the Ayatollah condemned the attacks and candlelit vigils broke out in Tehran. After the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan toppled the Taliban government, American and Iranian diplomats met together in Bonn, with a handful of representatives from other UN members, to form a new government and constitution for Kabul. "None was more [helpful] than the Iranians," said James Dobbins, the American special envoy to Afghanistan at the time, writing in the Washington Post . "The original version of the Bonn agreement ... neglected to mention either democracy or the war on terrorism. It was the Iranian representative who spotted these omissions and successfully urged that the newly emerging Afghan government be required to commit to both."

Iran also cooperated with the United Nations to repatriate nearly one million Afghan refugees residing on its soil and--working with United States, Russia, and India--provided support to the Northern Alliance. As Flynt Leverett of the Brookings Institution told the Council on Foreign Relations, "I think at least some Iranian officials were hoping [this] could get leveraged into a broader strategic dialogue, but that channel was effectively foreclosed when President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address labeled Iran as part of the 'Axis of Evil.'"

An overture from Iran for comprehensive bilateral talks, reportedly signed off at the highest levels of government, was offered to U.S. officials in May 2003 shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Some experts say the proposal, conveyed via a Swiss emissary, amounted to a "grand bargain" that would have included offers of negotiations over Iran's support for terrorist organizations and recognizing Israel's right to exist. During recent congressional hearings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she did not "remember ever seeing any such thing" as national security adviser, her position at the time of the overture. But former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage recently told Newsweek that it appeared at the time that the Iranians "were trying to put too much on the table" for serious negotiations to occur.

In other words, contrary to President Bush's claim, the White House rebuffed Iran's advances pre-Ahmadinejad to let bygones be bygones and, like Libya, start a new relationship based on cooperation rather than conflict. The question is: Why? And did Bush's "axis of evil" speech and subsequent rebuff of Iranian hand maybe hasten the election of a hardliner like Ahmadinejad? We may never know. But interestingly, the following year, outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, in November at an international conference on Iraq at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Nothing of substance was reportedly discussed as Powell was seen by the Iranians as a lame duck with no real power. Yet Powell predicted then that normal U.S.-Iranian relations would be restored "in due course." Not so long as this administration continues to manipulate intelligence and fashion its foreign policy based on hyped-up predictions of a nuclear-armed Iran bent on terrorizing the rest of the world.

Though maybe Powell was onto something. Iran by no means is a saint but it has apparently reduced its supply of deadly roadside bombs to Shiite militias in Iraq and it does see itself as a cosmopolitan country that, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, responds to diplomatic pressure using a "cost-benefit" calculus, much like Libya, North Korea, or any state for that matter. Who knows? Maybe it's not too late for Tehran, like Tripoli, to forswear its nuclear aspirations and get on Washington's good graces. At least then we could move on to more pressing issues, like resolving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Comments

[unctiousprattle]

We’ve known for a long time that Iran was trying to normalize relations with western nations. It’s had no small measure of misery thanks to the meddling of others. That it even has a sizable population of moderate constituents still amenable to the west is a measure of the resilience of its people. Their current form of government is young, a bit like Frankenstein, put together with pieces of republican democracy, fundamentalist Islam, and military junta.

The Bush/Cheney doctrine is to fix countries that are not mirror images of the United States with a Bush/Cheney makeover. Their makeover skills, however, are limited and they tend to just go in quick with the scalpel, put the new face on backwards and leave the patient bleeding. Iran is the next reluctant patient.

[Tankan]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be wiped off the map, that is the truth!
When you hear a leader of a nation using such language it's easy to understand why Israel in particular would not want him to have control of a nuclear bomb. George W Bush is a proven liar and deceiver of the highest order, so what flows from his mouth cannot be trusted! However, Israel has a different take on Iran's nuclear ambitions, they are convinced that Iran is manufacturing the necessary components to assemble a nuclear device, and, given the threats and rhetoric flowing from that source, it is understandable why they are very concerned about Iran acquiring the bomb. Therefore, if Iran is sincere about peaceful commercial intent, they should be more than willing to openly and transparently demonstrate to the satisfaction of concerned parties, that it is indeed a peaceful enterprise and not a covert operation with the intention of producing a bomb. The alarmist lies flowing from the White House in particular were intended to justify an attack on Iran nuclear facilities by the USA, that is now unlikely, but, an attack by Israel, given their take on intelligence gathering, is looking evermore likely. Therefore, it it behoves Iran to act responsibly and do all it can to convince Israel and the wider world that their is no aggressive military intent with its nuclear endeavours. It was Iranian speak that caused others to look at a military option, and despite all the lies and deceit, the world should not forget that fact!

[Tellmethetruth]

In October, when President Bush raised the specter of World War III with Iran because of its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, he knew that our own intelligence community had concluded months earlier that Iran had halted its weapons program in 2003.

This is as outrageous as it is irresponsible. It's exactly what he did in the run up to the war in Iraq in consistently exaggerating intelligence suggesting that Iraq had WMD while failing to tell the American people about intelligence concluding that it did not.

For many reasons, war with Iran is not just a bad option, it would be a disaster. So I want to be crystal clear on this: if the President takes us to war with Iran without Congressional approval, I will call for his impeachment.

The President's actions further undermine America's credibility around the world -- and the government's credibility here at home -- at a time when that credibility is at an all time low. And it injects more tension and instability into the Middle East at a time when we should be doing everything in our power to prevent that region from spiraling out of control.

Yesterday I gave a major address in Iowa outlining a plan to keep Iran from producing the material that could one day be used for a bomb -- without using force. I encourage you to take a few minutes to read that plan on my website:

http://www.joebiden.com/getinformed/speeches?id=0091

[MJIRN]

I am a nurse changing careers, I want to be a social studies teacher. How can I inspire students to act as responsible citizens? Any ideas?

[MJIRN]

I have come to the conclusion that our presidential candidates should be grilled on questions pertaining to "peace". If the word is not in their vocabulary, how can they ever invision the concept?

[TheScarletPimpernel]

Like any good drama there always needs to be a Villan...a bad guy,hence Bushs axil of evil speech, the GOP in general are only interested in power and the admin with supporting big oil. They are the folks who elected and financed Bush we all know it.
The Bush administration has been an administration run on fear and terrorising the American public with Bush/Cheney statements of doom and nuclear inialation.
Fact is nukes are in general a defesive weapon with little use against a like armed adversary.

[elghergo]

This shameless, relentless bastard!!! Who could expect any better from an unredeemable war criminal, from the scourge of human kind. The "bring them on" kid, the C student, the "mission accomplished" hero, the torturer in chief, the "I wipe my ass with the constitution" president, the twice fraudulently elected one, the "no kid left behind" con artist... What a leader, and what a gift from America to the world!

[lemonv]

President George W. Bush the Younger(sic) has been trying to perfect the art of telling Big Lies, the propaganda technique of the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. Remember the name Adolf Hitler?

Seems that President George W. Bush the Younger and Adolf Hitler has been using Big Lies. Adolf Hilter used it for propaganda purposes. Our current President? I have no idea. Maybe to bend the truth to his own liking? Hope that our George will not become an Adolf Hitler in the near future.

Found this on Wikipedia under Big Lie:

Big Lie is a propaganda technique in which the lie is so complex that the public will either dismiss it as impossible or choose not to believe it out of willful ignorance.

It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

[Hoelder]

Now this is what you get from an ideological driven administration. The nuclear issues suited the White House well. It could hang out to try whenever convenient. Now they discover that there is no suit and that the administration feels naked and a little chilly. And still the prayer mill is churning and the standard rhetoric as worn as it is serves until everybody notices that there are only empty chimes in the wind. Thank God they are still the juicy suppression of women garment and Ahmadeenajad is a lunatic number. Do you really have to hold a grudge that long just because their is a grudge?

[rockymountainhigh]

SO....why is it that nobody is concerned over the fact that IRAN CLAIMED IT HAD NO WEAPONS PROGRAM AT ALL!!!!!!! We now see that they did indeed have one, and you dolts want to trust these people? You dolts want to pretend all is well and Iran can be trusted? Oh yeah....how about the warhead blueprints they "accidentally" got in what they bought from Pakistan? Come on now...the moment their nuclear program got discovered in 2003, they went underground with the weapons development. To think anything else is just plain naive.

I do not want to start a war with Iran, unless it is blantanly obvious they are getting a nuke, but at the same time, do we take the Neville Chamberlain approach and stick our heads int he sand and ignore them until it is too late? How do you propose we handle a country that has repeatedly lied about its program and its intentions? Please, will just one person here tell me what they think is a viable option for dealing with Iran now that it has been confirmend they have been less than truthful for years.....

[lip11]

With all due respect, it's called LYING.

Why fall into the same traps that the wimpocrats do?

Oh, when Bush lies, they call it "misstatements", "bending the truth", "misleading", "rhetoric", etc..

BS - It's LYING.

[MajorKong]

As long as our policy towards Iran is regime change, and it is, the Iranians have no incentive to talk to us. They're not going to negotiate themselves out of existence.

[Dantana]

While I would like nothing more than Bush and Cheney impeached, I don't think they have the votes. Republicans would rather put up with Frick and Frack than put Pelosi in the whitehouse.

[dgeneo]

President Bush's statement that the current intelligence report [saying Iran quit it's
nuclear weapon program in 2003] doesn't change his previously-held views at all, clearly illustrates that he is in his own little world
("Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up!"). He himself certifies that he is, indeed
and in fact, clinically insane.

[ultomatt]

Condoreeza Lice is, without question, the worst Secretary of State, and formerly, the worst National Security Adviser, in US history. She is an obfuscater extraordinaire, claiming time and time again that she didn't have this or that report (Bin Laden determined to attack within the United States). And now she lies about not knowing about the Iranian attempt to offer a "grand bargain" in May 2003. Liar.

Claiming ignorance of such things is not a legally viable defense for fraud. And that's what she, and the rest of this pile of shit are guilty of (among thousands of other things), defrauding the American people out of trillions in tax dollars. Also, wiping their asses with the Constitution. But, the crux of it all is fraud. This has been a fraudulent enterprise from the moment they stole the 2000 election, to this very moment.

Ms Lice should be in prison where she can do piano recitals for her fellow inmates.