– John Bolton’s One Trick Pony: Iran’s Imaginary Nuke (Infowars, Feb. 24, 2012):
Bolton claims Iran’s “nuclear activities are broad and deep, and it is close to winning the strategically important race to the nuclear-weapons finish line,” a claim completely at odds with the assessment of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that says Iran is conducting research that could eventually enable it to develop a nuclear weapon, but that it is not doing so.
“I worry the publicly available information is giving only a very small picture and that Iran is actually even much further along,” Bolton told WorldNetDaily’s Aaron Klein in January. All the Iranians need to do, he insisted, is put their noses to the grindstone and they will have a nuke they can lob at Israel.
It’s fantasy, but one the so-called Bush era “Vulcans” consistently harp on from the dotage of their enforced retirement at think-tanks and from limelight bully pulpits at Fox News.
Bolton and his neocon cohorts know all about the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded with “high confidence” that the Islamic republic halted an effort to develop nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003, but that fact – now confirmed by 16 intelligence agencies – will not stop them from engaging in their Chicken Little act.
“Although Iran continues to enrich uranium at low levels, U.S. officials say they have not seen evidence that has caused them to significantly revise that judgment,” the Los Angeles Times reported on February 23. “Senior U.S. officials say Israel does not dispute the basic intelligence or analysis.”
In 2011 it was reported by the United States Institute of Peace and others that Iran was having problems with its nuclear program. In addition to fending off U.S. and Israeli cyber attacks, persistent sabotage of its nuclear facilities and the assassination of its scientists, Iran is finding it difficult to obtain essential parts on the international market and until recently had issues with its centrifuges.
In January, the International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that Iran had started enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. “The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the agency said in a statement,” RIA Novosti reported.
20 percent uranium enrichment is a long way off from more than 90 percent, the amount required to make an atomic weapon.
Iran, however, has given the neocons reason to keep their fantasy alive. In 2008, Iran announced it had developed an IR-2 centrifuge, its answer to the P2 centrifuge, which enriches more uranium per machine than its predecessor, the P1.
Despite mixed signals from Iran and intelligence claims that it is not seeking a bomb, the real reason the neocon faction of the global cabal continue to harp their bomb Iran mantra has nothing to do with nukes – it has to do with the perception that Iran is too big for its britches and wields to much influence in the neighborhood, especially over contentious Shiites (in particular Hezbollah in Lebanon).
Iran threatens Israeli hegemony – plain and simple – and that is why John Bolton and his neocon fellows are determined to flatten not only Iran’s fledgling nuclear program, but its military and civilian infrastructure as well.