Follow-up: Are we being Chalabied?

The Iranian parallels to the buildup of war hysteria over Iraq are growing.

The United States has intelligence indicating Iran is trying to fit missiles to carry nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said[, according to CNN on Thursday]. ...

"I have seen intelligence which would corroborate what this dissident group is saying," Powell told reporters Wednesday as he traveled to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Santiago, Chile. "And it should be of concern to all parties." ...

Powell said there is no evidence to suggest that Iran has developed the technology to make a nuclear weapon, but suggested that the regime is working to adapt missiles for nuclear warheads.

"I'm talking about information that says that they not only had these missiles, but I'm aware of information that suggests they were working hard as to how to put the two together," Powell said.

So we have the "dissident group" making accusations followed up by "intelligence" that "suggests" something terrible is in the works. Meanwhile, the credibility of the "dissidents" is built up, with their unsavory backgrounds mentioned only in passing:

Banned in the United States as a terrorist organization, the group was instrumental in 2002 in revealing Iran's enrichment program in the central city of Natanz, based on what it said was information provided by sources in Iran.

"Instrumental" is, shall we say, an overstatement. But a useful one to lend credence to new charges.

The next step, I suppose, would be complaints about the inadequacy of inspections and breathless declarations about the "threat" not only to the entire region but beyond - after all, Iran has called the US "the Great Satan" and if they get nukes, well, we know Osama bin Laden has expressed interest in them and they all hate us anyway, so... QED, right?

Oh wait, the first hints about the failure of inspections and the developing threat are already out there. Colin Powerless

said that "for 20 years the Iranians have been trying to hide things from the international community." ...

[Iran] currently possesses less than 1,000 centrifuges. But if it added 500 centrifuges, experts say Iran would be able to make enough weapons-grade uranium to make a bomb annually.

In all of this, by the way, does anyone remember that we have nuclear weapons? That we were the first to have the suckers, the first and so far the only ones to use them? This is not to say no one should be concerned about the proliferation of such monstrosities, but like the man said:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

Some good stuff in that book even for we non-believers, y'know?