Iran diplomacy claims debunked

(Updated below)

Yesterday I pointed to the devastating summary of Bush's failures in Rolling Stone. It was a good compendium -- but it's already out of date. Events proving the seismic magnitude of this newly revealed failure have not yet played out, but the fundamental dishonesty of the Adminstration's posturing about Iran is now indisuptable.

Kevin Drum connects the dots on a huge story that puts WPE's "we want to solve this issue diplomatically" onto the same scrap heap where we find the indentical claptrap they once spouted about war as a last resort with Iraq.

Turns out that Iran made diplomatic overtures to us in 2003:

(In a message conveyed via the Swiss Embassy), the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran's power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

And how did our blessed peacemakers respond?

Realists, led by Powell and his Deputy Richard Armitage, were inclined to respond positively to the Iranian offer. Nevertheless, within a few days of its receipt, the State Department had rebuked the Swiss ambassador for having passed on the offer.

Put that together with Sy Hersh's article (and my column), and war starts looking, to coin a phrase, like a slam dunk.

The Administration simply must be made to address these charges. If this story breaks into the mainstream, maybe we can force these punch-drunk madmen to back away from the precipice.

Update: via Glenn Grennwald, Scott Ritter sees the same thing:

...I say be careful of falling into the trap of nonproliferation, disarmament, weapons of mass destruction; this is a smokescreen. The Bush administration does not have policy of disarmament vis-à-vis Iran. They do have a policy of regime change. If we had a policy of disarmament, we would have engaged in unilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranians a long time ago. But we put that off the table because we have no desire to resolve the situation we use to facilitate the military intervention necessary to achieve regime change.

It’s the exact replay of the game plan used for Iraq, where we didn’t care what Saddam did, what he said, what the weapons inspectors found. We created the perception of a noncompliant Iraq, and we stuck with that perception, selling that perception until we achieved our ultimate objective, which was invasion that got rid of Saddam. With Iran, we are creating the perception of a noncompliant Iran, a threatening Iran. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Now that we have successfully created that perception, the Bush administration will move forward aggressively until it achieves its ultimate objective, which is regime change.