Seymour Hersh’s latest opus focuses on the threat posed by Iran. He cites no reason to doubt that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is strictly for civilian use, and he fails to ask what conceivable reason a country with Iran’s oil reserves could have for nuclear power other than to build a weapon. If the Iranian government were peaceful-minded, for example, wouldn’t it instead invest in increasing its refining capacity? And perhaps stop saying it wanted to destroy the United States and Israel? In Hersh’s head, the notion that Iran is openly hostile to the U.S., killing our soldiers in Iraq, is something of a mass delusion on the part of the Bush administration. Consider the following paragraph:
The Times article, however, makes plain several points Hersh implies are in dispute. First, the piece confirms, “Iran’s Quds Force had developed a formal and sophisticated training program that included five courses on tactics, leadership, training, commando operations and weapons and explosives.” Second, it cites interviews with “two dozen military, intelligence and administration officials” in reporting that Iran’s “shipments of arms had continued in recent months despite an official Iranian pledge to stop the weapons flow.” So what are “significant uncertainties” to which Hersh refers? Well, the article does say the shipments of arms had “not necessarily increased.” In other words, uncertainty exists not over whether weapons are being shipped, but whether the rate of the shipments have accelerated. Setting aside whether this constitutes a “significant” uncertainty, there is also reason to question Hersh’s use of the word “uncertain.” After all, there seems to be general agreement in the Times account that Iran is involved in shipping weapons to terrorists and training them to go fight U.S. forces, consistently so and despite its promise to desist.
