You Can Sum Up Why the World is Slow to Confront Iran in Four Letters

There are many people, both in the current Administration and in the last one, who have been frustrated in trying to get the rest of the world to confront Iran on their alleged nuclear weapons program. One word sums up why: Iraq.

Even as it was revealed earlier this week by the Iranians that they have been constructing another nuclear facility, which apparently is in a tunnel and has been known to the intel community for years (and which explains the Bush Administration's interest in deep-penetration weapons), the Iraq debacle continues to poison attempts to deal with Iran. You may recall that over six years ago, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made a presentation to the UN Security Council on the case that Iraq was developing nuclear and biological weapons.

Except, of course, Iraq wasn't doing any such thing. The purported "mobile biological weapons lab" was a hydrogen-generating truck for launching weather balloons. The "centrifuge tubes" were casings for short-range rockets (that the casings were not suitable for centrifuges was known at the time). Colin Powell's presentation, and probably through little fault of his own, was a mixture of misreadings of data, disinformation and outright lies, all of which ultimately traced back to Dick Cheney and his minions.

The rest of the world is operating on the basis of "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." Thanks to Chimpy and Darth Cheney for that. That is why, no matter how good our information is on Iran, the rest of the world will be slow to believe us.