Another Nuclear Shell Game

The new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program is both preposterous and dispiriting. Preposterous, because the agency has reinterpreted “old” facts instead of discovering new evidence. Dispiriting, because the reinterpretation may feed the growing punish-and-bomb Iran frenzy.

In an old Cold War joke, Ronald Reagan and Leonid Brezhnev compete in a two-man race. The Soviet media reports on the results thus: “In an international athletics competition, Comrade Brezhnev came second; President Reagan was second-last.” Technically correct but substantially wrong.