Nuclear US and Iran

For at least a couple months, the NYT has had daily first-page articles on putative Iran’s nuclear plans and considered the military and diplomatic solutions available to the US and Israel. It has been blowing hot and cold on the problem, mostly hot. It has been careful, given its patsy role in the move towards war with Iraq (the Judith Miller affair). Today, for the first time as far as I know, the NYT mentions Ali Khamenei’s pronouncements on the matter in a piece indicating our intelligence is hard at work decripting the statements of Iran’s theocracy. Some of these pronouncements have been available on the web for a while, but never quoted or linked in articles in major US newspapers. Blowing hot continues at the NYT, however, starting with the title, “Seeking Nuclear Insight in Fog of the Ayatollah’s Utterances.” I’ll have to analyze the article in detail, but it’s enough to say it’s not giving us a full report. Quotation from the fifth paragraph:

Ayatollah Khamenei, who is not only the leader of Iran’s government but also the final authority on Islamic law, often uses religious language when he talks about the nuclear issue, which can jar Western analysts trying to gauge the meaning of such strong statements. With tensions over the nuclear program rising in February, he used that language to signal his opposition to nuclear weapons. “Iran is not seeking to have the atomic bomb, possession of which is pointless, dangerous and is a great sin from an intellectual and a religious point of view,” he said.

The words “Nuclear weapons” are linked, and I was hoping it was to the full text of Khamenei’s February declaration to Iranian nuclear personnel, but it goes in fact to a short page on the New Start treaty. I’ll have to get back to all of this.