Waaaagh!

A timeline that no one is really mentioning...

1. Building from 2002 to March 2003 - US kicks off invasion of Iraq
   
2. 2003 - Iran stops working on anything resembling nuclear weapon program
   
3. Late 2003 - no WMD found in Iraq
   
4. Summer 2005 - US announces support for Rafsanjani in Iranian election
   
5. August 2005 - Ahmadinejad wins election with 62% of vote - many pointing out that American noises before the election played to his anti-american stance.
   
6. December 2007 - President forced to admit Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program, which he's known for quite some time but refuses to admit to (that or the NIE is filled with words bigger than 'my pet goat')
   

There were people in this administration who were looking for the NEXT target way back in 2003... this is why we told Iran to screw off when they offered to roll over on Israel when we were gearing up to hit Iraq. There were people who thought Iraq would become a land of milk and honey - and a permanent base for US interests from which we could project power and remake the region. When that failed - we had to make up some crap about that next target. We didnt want someone reasonable in Iran... we wanted a bogeyman and bringing back the old playbook of 'they gots dangerous weapons' seemed to work pretty well. So we made a bunch of noises that quite obviously would have the opposite impact on the Iranian election. That all worked out just fine - the only problem being that the new anti-american iranian president never rebuilt the nuclear weapons program - apparently smart enough to realize he'd be handing washington a pretext for war (sure, they'll build em eventually - because hell, without em you get invaded...) People in the administration just didnt believe it though...
I think the game is up though. As the election begins in earnest in less than a month, i dont think cheney and his minions are going to have much luck with another big lie (though i dont suppose we should misunderestimate them)