Another Rumor on Attacking Iran Bites the Dust

New York Times - United States

Who needs the morning coffee to jolt you awake, when you’ve got headlines like this one from The Jerusalem Post?

Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term

It’s provocative, that’s for sure. But it’s also wrong, according to The White House. In a statement issued later in the day, the president’s press secretary, Dana Perino, wielded one of the nastiest barbs in journalism, saying the article was “not worth the paper it’s written on” — after including the usual complaint about the “quoting [of] unnamed sources.”
The Post, in turn, quickly corrected its report, which was the easy part. But the farther that false news spreads on the Web, the more likely it is to remain in circulation.
The original report quickly sparked an eruption in the left-leaning blogosphere, including many readers who saw nothing remotely implausible in it. “That’s so surprising,” one commenter said. “NOT!”

Three of four Americans also express concern that the United States “will be too quick to use military force” against Iran.
On that, partisans disagree. Just 25 percent of Republicans are “very concerned” about the premature use of military force, compared with 57 percent of Democrats.
The administration has repeatedly denied any such intention. In April 2006, the White House slapped down an extensive and anonymous-source-laden report in The New Yorker on the details of war planning against Iran. “We along with the international community are pursuing a diplomatic solution to the issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program,” Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman, said.
Today’s denial included a similar line: “We are working to bring tough diplomatic and economic pressure on the Iranians to get them to change their behavior and to halt their uranium enrichment program.”
In February 2007, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, escalated the rhetorical battle with a warning to the United States about any attack: “No one would commit such a blunder and jeopardize the interests of his country and people.”
A few days later, Hans Blix, the former United Nations chief weapons inspector in Iraq, took up the issue of war with Iran in an Op-Ed essay, asserting that “hardly any foreign policy issue is hotter right now.”
By June, media reports had illuminated the lines within the Bush administration, pitting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice against Vice President Cheney, a thread given new life in today’s report in Israel. Ms. Rice, of course, publicly dismissed any talk of divisions.
“The President of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course,” Ms. Rice said. “That policy is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States.”
For good measure, Vladimir V. Putin, then the president of Russia and now the prime minister, sent his own shot across America’s bow, warning against military action during a visit to Tehran in October.
December brought a major threat-clearing moment: U.S. Finds Iran Halted Its Nuclear Arms Effort in 2003. But the tension built anew in January in the aftermath of a skirmish in the Strait of Hormuz. Tough talk has continued, with President Bush assailing any “appeasement” of Iran.
The back-and-forth is enough to make the most skilled spinmeisters dizzy. In fact, Ms. Perino’s predecessor as press secretary, Tony Snow, got tripped up almost exactly a year ago during his daily press briefing:
MR. SNOW: Let me put it this way: The use of force is off the table. All right? Let me be specific. That is what the President has said. Is that not correct?
Q Is off, or is not off?
MR. SNOW: I’m sorry — is not off the table. Thank you. (Laughter.) Yes, it’s on the table.
Of course, as long as the table remains set, the specter of war remains in the distance — that is, until it returns to the headlines, as it did today.