Did President Bush Threaten World War III Knowing Iran Had Halted Its Nuke Program?

Politicians choose their words carefully. Bill Clinton's famous concern for the definition of "is" stands as but one example.

At a press conference on October 17th, President Bush said, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

At the time, that seemed the oddest choice of words: "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Were we going to attack Iran if they knew how to make a nuke, rather than if they had built and were prepared to use it?

That seems a pretty low bar. Why such a low bar?

Now, we may know why the President set such a low threshold for starting a war. He may have already known that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago.

Did he know? Did he threaten Iran while keeping this information a secret from us? That is a question that the national media, if it is doing its job, will have to ask the President, and the President must answer the question: What did he know? When did he know it?