I Don’t Care What The Intelligence Says

Does any sentence sum up the modern conservative movement more?

They’re undoubtedly intent upon nuclear weapons. I don’t care what this latest NIE says. That’s foolishness that represents our own inability to get a handle on it more than anything else.

That was Fred Thompson, going with his gut over established reality and creating it himself.

In a similiar and far more dispiriting vein today was Thomas Friedman, who uses an idiotic analogy (par for the course for him, I know) to suggest we would be better off lying about the reality of Iran's nuclear program in order to make ourselves look tough to the Gulf states. I don't know when it was decided that we should base our foreign policy on how Bahrain would perceive us.

People know that Iran is still enriching uranium, and they know they have the right to do so under the NPT. People know that their enrichment program is actually overblown, and wouldn't produce enough weapons-grade product for a half-decade. People know that the ability to maneuver enriched uranium into a weapon is still a threat - Europe is pretty united on that one. And people know that a good ground for negotiations occurs when one side isn't threatening to blow up the other side every five seconds. Indeed, the toning down of the rhetoric, caused in part by the release of the NIE, is aiding efforts at additional sanctions at the UN.

Friedman doesn't understand this because the words "Suck. On. This." don't appear in such a policy.