Panic! US No Longer Number One!

Less than 24 hours after I argued, "America should not be at the centre of our approach to the world. It is not a case of 'America leads, we follow'," I read these headlines in the British press:

"No more them and us, with a farewell to American supremacy", "Sun setting on the American century", "US influence to decline"

The occasion for these doom-laden announcements is the publication of the US National Intelligence Council report, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. Actually, the substance of the report was leaked months ago, but its formal presentation is the ideal accompaniment to the fretting of columnists such as Thomas Friedman and Paul Kennedy that "[Obama] is to run a country far less dominant, relatively, than at the time of Wilson, Truman and Kennedy".

Still, maybe we're overreacting. Maybe we can go to sleep assured that America is still protecting all of us. For this is the headline on the same report in the New York Times:

Global Forecast by American Intelligence Expects Al Qaeda’s Appeal to Falter

Panic! The Iran Bomb!

Geez, I go away for a few days and the world falls apart. First, Al-Qa'eda starts calling President-elect Obama a "house Negro".

That, however, is a close second in the Run-For-Your-Lives contest: Number One is the bomb that Iran is going to drop on us.

This lead paragraph from Thursday's New York Times:

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

The reporters remind us, "Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many Western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons." "Experts" were trotted out to assure, "[The Iranians] are marching down the path to developing the nuclear weapons option.” So....

For President-elect Barack Obama, the report underscores the magnitude of the problem that he will inherit Jan. 20: an Iranian nuclear program that has not only solved many technical problems of uranium enrichment, but that can also now credibly claim to possess enough material to make a weapon if negotiations with Europe and the United States break down.

Well, I have to admit that this revelation upset me a bit. It's going to be hard to enjoy the Tivoli Gardens and the National Museum when I'm watching the sky for nuclear annihilation. Even more upsetting, however, is the realisation --- on closer reading of the story --- that this report is closer to panic than analysis.

Two paragraphs after proclaiming the imminence of the bomb, the article drops in:

Several experts said that [amount of low-enriched uranium] was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.

Hmm....that might be significant, especially if the reader can make the effort to link it to the minor details --- five paragraphs later:

American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015. A national intelligence estimate made public late last year concluded that around the end of 2003, after long effort, Iran had halted work on an actual weapon.

A reader from Birmingham adds:

It's tiresome to see this continual alarmist reporting on what really are routine, benign matters. And what's particular crazy is the claim that Iran almost has enough low-enriched uranium to produce one bomb. Such a bomb would have to be tested. Then there would be uranium for zero bombs.

I hope people don't take such reporting seriously.

Me, too. Otherwise, I might confuse the Christmas lights here for signs of our imminent doom.

Condoleezza Rice in the New York Times

While I've been discussing Marx, Hitler, and Stalin with sixth-formers (high school seniors), another deep political thinker has been chatting with the New York Times.

Condi Rice's interview has sparked a firestorm of discussion amongst colleagues. While I'm catching up, here's an introductory tribute from Mr Steve Earle:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avwJPNmCDh0[/youtube]

Fact x Importance = News: If Only the New York Times Were Real

Here's the front page of the "New York Times" handed out to commuters on Wednesday:

OK, OK, it's the work of "pranksters" --- the word used by the supposedly-authentic New York Times --- but can't I just hold on for a moment to "The Iraq War Ends" and "Nation Builds Sane Economy" as real?

After all, it's not like the supposedly-authentic New York Times hasn't dabbled in a bit of fake news. (I know, you're way ahead of me.) Which do you prefer: Wednesday's front page or the one by Judith Miller on the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction?