Archive

Is Iran Really An Immediate Threat?

Reality check

There's no smoking gun

cheats/2011/11/18/hersh-is-iran-really-an-immediate-threat/iran-ahmadinejad-nukes-charges-reaction-cheat_wdkvbp
Vahid Salemi / AP Photo

As someone who has spent a decade reporting on Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb, the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh provides a crucial dose of reality to the debate surrounding the country. Much has been made of a recent report International Atomic Energy Agency that offers evidence of “undeclared nuclear facilities” in Iran, but a closer look at the report reveals nothing approaching a smoking gun. Rather, it “leaves us where we’ve been since 2002, when George Bush declared Iran to be a member of the Axis of Evil--with lots of belligerent talk but no definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons program.”

Read it at the New Yorker

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.