Here we go again! The Bush/Cheney regime is using the mushroom cloud fearmongering to arouse passions in support of a US attack on Iran, just as they did in the run up to the Iraq war in 2002 and early 2003. They have been joined in this endeavour by the same cast of characters that helped sell the Iraq war on a frightened American public: Republican neocons and their Democratic neoliberal allies, the Christian Right, the Israel Lobby.
It is disturbing to see and hear Democratic candidates on the stump using bellicose language against Iran, such as "all options are on the table," and hinting by at least one leading candidate that the use of tactical nukes are an acceptable option to be considered. It is alarming to see the same Democratic candidates accept the Administration's claims of an Iranian military nuclear program with the same unquestioned faith by which they accepted similar claims about Iraq.
Let us remember that it was Bush who ordered the UN to pull the IAEA inspectors from Iraq so that Bush could have his war of choice. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let us support the work being done by IAEA, and let's oppose the Bush Administration's war rhetoric which would drive any reasonable person to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent to having their country become the next Iraq.
Attention Democratic candidates: Iran is NOT developing an atomic bomb! Don't fall for the war propaganda, whether it comes from the White House, the pulpits, or Jerusalem. Demand solid and verifiable intelligence. Remember that Bush has politicized our intelligence services, driving underground the critical analysis of dedicated intelligence professionals. Remember that in Iraq, Bush made the intelligence "fit the policy," at the cost of nearly 4,000 American lives.
Let's stand for peace and against war, before Bush plunges our nation into a biblical Armageddon.
IAEA: Iran Cooperating In Nuclear Investigation
By John Ward Anderson and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A10PARIS, Aug. 30 -- The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency gave an upbeat assessment of Iranian cooperation with international inspectors in a new report Thursday that could make it more difficult for the United States to win tougher U.N. sanctions against Iran.
The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna also concluded that while Iran continues to enrich uranium in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, its fuel enrichment plant has produced "well below the expected quantity for a facility of this design." The quality of the uranium also was lower than expected, the IAEA said.
<snip>
Iran claims that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and intended to generate electricity, while the United States and numerous other Western countries contend it is secretly aimed at developing nuclear weapons. The report suggests that if Iran adheres to the program and timelines, the agency could resolve its remaining questions about the nature of the country's nuclear program by the end of the year and close the file.
"For the first time in a couple of years, we have been able to agree with the Iranians on a working arrangement, on how to resolve the outstanding issues," the U.N. agency's deputy director, Olli Heinonen, told reporters in Vienna. "What Iran is now facing is actually a litmus test" on whether it will deliver what it has promised, because its failure to do so in the past triggered Security Council action, Heinonen said.
If the IAEA concludes that Iran has not engaged in a covert program to develop nuclear weapons, it could raise new questions about the quality of U.S. intelligence in the Middle East. The United States made the case for going to war against Iraq based on claims that Saddam Hussein had programs to develop nuclear technologies and other weapons of mass destruction, but U.S. forces found no evidence of such programs after invading the country.
Longtime observers of Iran's program were struck by the report's revelations of slow progress of uranium enrichment. Iran appears to be running well behind its own self-imposed schedule for building new centrifuge machines, and its existing machines are operating well below capacity.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/30/AR2007083000460.html?hpid=sec-world 
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