For Conservative Media, Iran Is Always A Year Away From Having Nukes

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201202210012

February 21, 2012 5:22 pm ET by Mike Burns

Recently, conservative media have been pushing for Israel or the United States to launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, in some cases justifying an attack by claiming that Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. In the context of Fox's efforts to beat the drums of war, Fox News national security analyst KT McFarland distorted comments by Secretary of Defense and former CIA director Leon Panetta to claim that "Iran will have a nuclear weapon in a year or sooner." (Panetta actually said, "The consensus is that, if they decided to do it, it would probably take them about a year to be able to produce a bomb and then possibly another one to two years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle of some sort in order to deliver that weapon.&quot

Contrary to what conservatives claim, however, there are significant questions about whether Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons at all. Indeed, 2007 and 2011 National Intelligence Estimates found no conclusive evidence that Iran is even trying to build a bomb. In January 31 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reiterated the fact that the U.S. intelligence committee does not have evidence to say that Iran is trying to build a bomb.

But there is another good reason to have some skepticism when conservatives warn that Iran is on the verge of having a nuclear weapon: they have been warning that Iran is months, a year, or at most two years away from the bomb for years. Here are some examples:

[SunsetDreams]

1. K&R great post

I read it yesterday, only I would say they have been saying this longer than since 2005.

[hifiguy]

2. A new variation on the "Friedman unit"

derived from Noted Jackass Thomas Friedman's statements that "the situation in Iraq will turn around in six months" every six months for years.

[kenfrequed]

3. There are Democrats that ride this horse too

But yeah, Republicans seem mostly monolithic in their phobia of all things Farsi or Persian.