Powell Caves

November 18, 2004

So Colin Powell, just days after bailing out, has decided to add fuel to the neocons’ Iran fire.

Seemingly taking at face value the likely spurious claims of the neocon-linked People’s Mujahideen—an Iranian exile group with a decades-long pedigree of Chalabi-style exaggeration—Powell issued a vague confirmation of the group’s claims about Iran’s nuclear program.

From the Post:

In Paris, the exile group charged that Iran was still enriching uranium and would continue to do so despite the pledge made Sunday to European foreign ministers. The group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, or NCRI, also claimed that Iran received blueprints for a Chinese-made bomb in the mid-1990s from the global nuclear technology network led by the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The Khan network sold the same type of bomb blueprint to Libya, which has since renounced its nuclear ambitions.

Powell was quoted in the Post saying that he has “seen some information that would suggest”—could it be more vague?—that Iran is developing nuclear weapon delivery systems. Worse, more shockingly, Powell endorsed the Mujahideen’s claims. “I have seen intelligence which would corroborate what this dissident group is saying, and it should be of concern to all parties," Powell said, according to the New York Times .

Could it mean that the neocons, flexing their newfound, Bush II muscle, might launch a military strike against Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities? Especially if neocon hawk John Bolton, the arms control specialist, gets the No. 2 post under Condi Rice at State? As one expert told Reuters :

"That could happen. It's absolutely feasible," said Foreign Policy editor Moises Naim.

Naim noted that U.S. administrations for decades had employed air strikes as an instrument of policy. Former President Bill Clinton used air power against Serbia and launched missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan.

"There's nothing new about using air strikes. That would be the continuation of a traditional tool of U.S. foreign policy," he said.

Nope. Nothing new there.