Um, frist?

But really, the Israelis are ready to make a concession and the Bush administration is trying to stop them. How does this make any sense even in their terms? Is Hagee on staff now?

Makes perfect sense if you look at our 50 years of Middle East policy as creating political instability. Probably related to resource acquisition, since we don't interfere with countries not having resources.

I didn't see a better place to ask this: What's going on with the ads in your sidebar? OK, maybe "SIEU hurts my patients." But McCain promos? And, ironically, the "Advertise Liberally" icon between them. Surely you can replace those with some ads for Lattes and hybrid cars, can't you? Or maybe Crown Royal.

Jon M.,
That's nothing. The other day on a well-respected lefty blog I saw a Google ad inviting me to "Meet Hot Iraqi Chicks." Sadly, I'm already married.

And, what stuck in 200 said. This Bush crowd makes no sense at all.

It would be refreshing to learn that Syria and Israel are tyring to reach a deal but I'd be surprised. Your reasoning, however, is as good as anything else.

The sad truth was that my first reaction was that I wanted to know more before I believed my government. It would be nice to know that when my government made representations on really relevant information that I wouldn't have to do due diligence to see if what they are telling me is true. Unfortunately, that day has long passed.

Well, I dont think its about resources as Syria produces 380,000 bpd in 2007 [CIA factbook] from its high of 586,000 bpd in 1996. It exports 150,000 bpd and imports just as much while consuming 229,000 bpd. It has some natural gas reserves of 240 billion cubic meters.

Syrias dwindling oil production would, as with any country, cause it to seek alternative energy sources as it may have been doing.

"The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities," he said. "The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent lack of fuel, either imported or indigenously produced, also is curious and lowers confidence that Syria has a nuclear weapons program." -David Albright

So, why now was this disclosed? Dunno. I speculate that it has to do with Ben-Ami Kadish arrest and the bean spilling thats currently going on and this is damage control.

Well, I'm all for IMPEACHING the lying bastards, that's why I call Nan @ 1-202-225-0100 and DEMAND IMPEACHMENT.

I'm sure under everyone's favorite captive, John McCain, will fix everything once he moves his geriatric ass into the White House, accompanied by the Beer Queen.

A little history for you - McCain was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967 and parachuted into Truc Boch Lake, whence he was promptly captured by Vietnamese troops and hauled away to prison. And rightly so. McCain's target that afternoon was a lightbulb factory, a civilian factory of no strategic importance. In other words, McCain was in the midst of committing a war crime when he was shot down. Some hero.

Just out of curiosity, is there anything Israel could build that it would be OK for the Syrians to bomb? I mean, if they got pictures and stuff so they could prove it was what they said it was.

Can you spell "I-n-f-o-r-m-a-t-i-o-n O-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n"?

Well, somebody needed to step in before things got carried away and they started acting all sovereign & everything. Next and you know, they're gonna want their own national anthems.

If we really hit a nuclear site, you'd think we'd have been bragging about it right away. It would fit in perfectly with the adminstration's line that they are making the world safer from very dangerous parties.

Instead, they didn't say it. Why? They probably couldn't prove that they hit a reactor. Why? They didn't really hit a reactor. Why? I don't know.

So, the delay in talking about it is explained by spending all this time working out the proof and the story to show that what actually wasn't a reactor- intentionally or unintentionally hit- was a reactor, and this could be very complicated, because any details that crept out showing the contrary could make the administration look very bad. It could take a long time to chase down every lead possible, and to make sure nothing's going to creep out of the closet- probably you want to keep the story quiet for a few months while you just wait and see if anything that casts doubt on you shows up, so you can take care of it (bribe or whatever, or think up an alternate explanation for the inconvenient facts) before a lot of people who aren't loyal to you are already paying a lot of attention to the story.

Also, the Syrians would probably have to be in on the cover-up, so a big part of the complication could be negotiating or thinking up something to offer them in exchange for their not contradicting us about the "reactor" too effectively.

The administration and the Republicans want to be known as super-effective warriors and terrorism-fighters. They want people to think they don't make mistakes.

So if they try to hit some shit and they miss, it embarasses them. It becomes a political liability. It's like another huge symbol that they're actually just regular guys wielding huge powers, and trying to play themselves off as super-heroes, or even worse, that they're incompetent.

That's why they wouldn't want people to know so desperately if they tried to hit a nuclear generator (or maybe even just a few terrorists) and they wiped out Uncle Ali's goat farm instead.

Could it have something to do with Incurious George's impending visit to Israel?

1. Golan transfer dead
2. Hamas deal dead
3. Annapolis dead (see below)
4. Iran?

WASHINGTON, April 26 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that he failed to achieve any progress in Middle East peace talks with U.S. President George W. Bush and he is returning home from Washington with little to show for his visit.

"We demanded the Americans implement the first phase of the road map that talks about the cessation of settlement expansion," Abbas said, expressing disappointment the U.S. has not exerted more pressure on Israel to stop. "This is the biggest blight that stands as a big rock in the path of negotiations."

Israel is pushing forward with controversial building projects on disputed land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and has so far refused to evacuate illegal settlement outposts, release Palestinian prisoners, halt military incursions, and dismantle roadblocks that severely disrupt daily life.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/978049.html

"Since hawks hate treaties of all kinds"

Stupid liar.

Jon M. and Thersites:

If you actually knew anything about current union issues, including the corporate suck-up-itis of SEIU President Andy Stern and his AFL-CIO breakaway "New Unionism," you'd click on that link and read more, and get an eye-opener.

It's a liberal ad.

The SEIU is not a liberal union.

Kevin, congrats. This is big, big news. Way to cover it. Your second theory seems right on to me.

I'm not so convinced by Kevin's theory on the timing.

A story just came out on Bush's popularity reaching an all-time low recently. But Bush and the Republicans want him to be remembered as well-liked, because it will help their politics. They knew they were going to claim they blew up a nuclear weapons reactor for a while- once they decided it was safest to try to push their bullshit story- so they decided, instead of letting a "snowball effect" drag him down further, they'd try to infuse something into the mix to halt the trend of his decline. So they released the story.

The Syria-Israel thing, if it's true, I'd chalk up as mabye a secondary motivation for the timing, but only that.

In my opinion, the video is intended to justify the bombing, and Bush is showing it now to build support for bombing similar facilities in Iran.

McCain's whole campaign is built on fear. Can't scare the American people into voting for another wingnut if there aren't any boogeymen.

Borrowed from the front page and edited slightly to reflect the full truth of the matter:

>"...peace ... The Bush administration is dead set against it"

When Bush gloated "Hey, I'm a war president" few understood that he was (in a rare moment) actually being truthful.

The headline of my local newspaper this morning was "U.S. Eyes Military Options Against Iran". These fucking war hawks are bound and determined to destroy this country through military overreach. We are a nation in a death spiral and there is little, if any, time to reverse things. I wouldn't be surprised if Syria is next and I also wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't matter whether Hillary Clinton or John McCain gets elected this fall - both are beholden to the military-industrial complex.

Barack Obama may be our only hope and the mainstream media is doing everything they can to torpedo his campaign, including making Hillary seem like a viable candidate when she has virtually no hope of getting the nomination. I wouldn't be surprised if there is an attempt on Obama's life soon to stop his candidacy.

I need to get busy today and write some e-mails and letters to my senators and representative, trying to stop this ridiculous and unnecessary attack against Iran. I urge everyone who read this blog to do the same!

The null hypothesis is that everything the Bush Adminstration says is a lie.

> However, there's another possibility: there
> have been some very credible reports recently
> that Israel and Syria are serious about trying
> to work out a deal of their own that basically
> exchanges peace for a return of the Golan Heights.

Which goes to show you why the confident statements on the the wingnut blogs about this incident are utterly untrustworthy and useless. If (and that's a big if) that report is correct, then I could easily see moderate factions in Syria giving Israel the information it needed to vaporize a project that Syrian Republicans, oops, I mean hardliners were carrying out with North Korean support. Then the moderates could move to suppress the hardliners on the basis of their being incapable of keeping secrets/defending the country, giving them room to negotiate with Israel.

Likely? No. Possible? Yes. Do USians understand Middle East politics? The question answers itself.

Cranky

The first rule of foreign policy is to protect the interest of the nation. That also happens to be the last rule.

All this nonsense about the rights of other nations is just that...nonsense. The only countries that get respect for their sovereignty are those that can command/demand it.

"Still, something about it doesn't quite ring true."

Like Gary Sugar's comment, I think the goal (at least partly) of the release of information now is to establish the efficacy of preemptive bombing to halt nuclear proliferation.

On to Iran!

Hey, Mike Meyer. Give it a rest. OK, there buddy? Come back with your one note when you can count to 67.

Pat: May be one note but its the RIGHT NOTE. Besides, I feel it to be unconscienable to not try to stop Bush and Cheney from even one more day in office. They're killing people everyday, don't YOU know. YOU may like what they're doing and agree with it, but I don't.

Call me slightly skeptical but what identifies this as a Syrian site? Other than the cool enhanced graphics, I mean.

Is there any possibility that a site/building of this design could be constructed anywhere in the world with terrain like that in the photo? Just askin'.

Could those photos be from some other reactor (say in North Korea or who-knows-where) somewhere else in the world?

Were those "aluminum tubes" I saw leaning against the wall?

I wonder if our congress-critters were awed by this presentation?

Does anybody trust anything our government uses as an argument against a "rogue" state anymore?

The transcript is available at the ODNI site here. The rationale for releasing the information now is included (ee pg. 7, which IIRC was missing--or at least much of it--from the originally posted transcripts). Most of the issues are ostensibly addressed, although notably absent is any mention of Israeli-Syrian discussions.

That said, I'd agree posts that there may be an undercurrent aimed at the Israeli-Syrian initiatives, and at bolstering the case for a preemptive strike against Iran. There's also: (1) an obvious attempt to use this as an opportunity to back-peddle on the perception of the declassified NIE; and (2) a not-so-subtle attempt to tie Syria's activities to Iran, even if indirectly through the DPRK.

While all of those may be objectives, I think the immediate target is the DPRK negotiations. If DPRK involvement can be unwound...

We are at the point in the Six-Party talks where we believe going public will strengthen our negotiators as they try to get an accurate accounting of North Korea's nuclear programs. We believe and hope that it will encourage North Korea to acknowledge its proliferation activity...

That is obviously a roll of the dice with respect to the six-party talks. The DPRK could back out or continue to stall, or give up information that puts Iran and Syria (and in particular Iran) in a much less attractive light.

I looked at the video and it contained exactly two pieces of hard evidence to say this was a nuclear reactor, the two photos of construction; and we have no idea if those are fake. I am not smart enough to know if those pictures are necessarily of a nuclear reactor.

I was having Deja Vu of Colin Powell. This is all a crock.

Kevin, don't you ever learn?

First assume EVERYTHING this administration says is a lie, then go from there. You will be much closer to the truth.

Wait, this couldn't possibly be right. I know this because yesterday NPR told me that the reason for the delay was that they were waiting until a time when they wouldn't blow the cover of the secret agent who discovered the nuclear site. That's totally the Administration's number one concern, isn't it, not blowing their agents' covers?

Kevin's foreign policy acumen has not improved any since he was last sold a bill of goods on Iraq's WMDs. Seymour Hersh is much more credible than the Republican hawks at the pentagon.

The building only has a general resemblance to the North Korean reactor and there are several problems with that theory, which Kevin at least acknowledges.

Part of this PR effort seems to be simply to keep the "OMG, nukes against Israel" meme going until Cheney calls for the Iranian air strikes.

Click here for a very good deconstruction of these phony Syrian nukes.

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