As I've said on many occasions, when it comes to conspiracy theories, the neocons are in a league of their own. In 1999, they peddled the fiction that Yugoslav forces were committing 'genocide' in Kosovo. Four years later, they peddled the lie that Saddam Hussein's Iraq possessed WMD. (whatever happened to them, I wonder?). Now in 2009, the neocon conspiracy theory is that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme.
Never mind that US intelligence agencies published a report claiming that Iran has no such programme, or that not a scrap of evidence exists to show that Iran is developing nuclear weapons- the neocons still continue peddle the theory.
Here's 'Mad' Melanie Phillips, writing on her Spectator blog
As was entirely predictable, the Iranian government has reacted with utter contempt to the exciting new approach of US President Obama towards resolving the crisis over Iran’s nuclear weapons programme
Note that Ms Phillips talks of a 'crisis' regarding a country's non-existent nuclear weapons programme- the neocons, like their jack-booted predecessors, love to stoke up artifical international 'crises' every three years or so to get the wars they are so addicted to.
And in The Times, arch neo-con Daniel Finkelstein writes:
As Iran gets a nuclear weapon , as if Iran getting a nuclear weapon is as inevitable as night following day.
In the same way that neocons felt obliged to write of 'Iraq's WMD' in every article they penned in the lead up to the 2003 war, they now feel obliged to write of 'Iran's nuclear weapons programme' as a matter of fact, when it most clearly isn't.
Now there are conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories: Professor Cornelius Wacky-Backy's view that little green men made of cheese live on Mars might be silly, but it doesn't cost any lives. The neocons' conspiracy theories do - at the latest count 1m in Iraq.
Which is why it is so important that we should not allow their unsubstantiated claims regarding 'Iran's nuclear weapons programme' to go unchallenged.
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