Roger Cohen, "Israel's Iran Itch": Jackass

Do you remember how Roger Cohen spent much of the first six months of 2009 attempting to convince us that Iran is "not totalitarian"?

This was followed a "memorable" 2011 op-ed (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/opinion/14iht-edcohen14.html) in which Cohen wrote:

"Seymour Hersh concludes in a New Yorker article this month that, as he put it in one interview, 'There’s just no serious evidence inside that Iran is actually doing anything to make a nuclear weapon.'

His reporting reveals that the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (N.I.E.) of 2007 — which concluded 'with high confidence' that Iran had halted a nuclear-weapons program in 2003 — still pertains in the classified N.I.E. of 2011. As a retired senior intelligence official put it to Hersh, there’s nothing 'substantially new' that 'leads to a bomb.'

In other words, Iran, epicenter of inefficiency, unable to produce a kilowatt of electricity through its Bushehr nuclear reactor despite decades of effort, is still doing its old brinkmanship number."

Well, here we are in August 2012, and all Western intelligence services are aware that Iran has been, and is, building a nuclear bomb. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate was pure rubbish.

Today, Roger Cohen, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Israel's Iran Itch" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/opinion/israels-iran-itch.html), writes:

"Iran is not enriching uranium, as it claims, for a power plant of epic dysfunction. But nor has it yet united the various elements needed to make a bomb. If it ever makes the decision to do so, I expect the U.S. military response to be swift and devastating. The wise choice for Israel is therefore patience."

So it appears that the penny has finally dropped, and Cohen, in his infinite wisdom, finally acknowledges what Iran is seeking.

Israel should be patient? It's time for Obama to recognize that the P5+1's so-called negotiations with Iran concerning its nuclear weapons development program have failed. Moreover, Iran has shown itself adept at evading American sanctions with the able assistance of European banks.

Unlike various former heads of the Israeli Mossad and General Security Service, I am not seeking to appear on television throughout the world and proffer advice.

My sole recommendation: Ignore Roger Cohen, who, unlike a broken clock, is not even right twice a day.