very similar arguments were made about Judy Miller's reporting in the run-up to the Iraq War. Is decontextualized a nice bureaucratic way of saying 'out of context' and misleading? If so, why not just say that. I don't object to the facts. What I object to is the facts being spun in such a way as to create a dynamic that leads the President to pull the trigger vis-a-vis Iran. Or, do you think that cannot happen?

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

...lacking a "net assessment" or a bottom line, for lack of a better term. It's very difficult for me to assess precisely why it is that I don't like much of the coverage on Iran. In large part I think this is because the facts presented in much of the coverage are actually accurate, but what is missing is an overlying narrative or context that speaks to what Iranian intentions likely are and where the facts related fit into the trajectory thusfar.

I look at what Sanger in particular has written and I see a piece that touches on the major important issues:

-the progress that Iran has made and the ambiguity as to whether it can be sustained,

-the gap between the administration's position and al-Baradei's position regarding suspension,

-the notion that the administration's aim of keeping them from acquiring the knowledge and technical capability to enrich is no longer tenable,

-that the then forthcoming report was likely to say that the IAEA's handle on what the Iranians are doing in the program has decreased,

-the numbers of Iran's progress and what it might be able to achieve in the near future,

-the notion that what the Iranians may be trying for is the production of a breakout capability rather than a full-fledged weapons capability,

-and the notion that the no spinning centrifuges hardline is something that belongs to hawks in the administration and has some very, very significant downsides to it and even if pursued should be deferred.

There's nothing in there that I can point to as being factually wrong. It puts a lot on me as the reader to properly and completely evaluate the significance of all that (i.e., that I shouldn't panic yet, though the Iranians sure look to be marching ever forward) but I'm not sure that's inappropriate. You say you see spin - what specifically are you thinking of as spin here? I look and look to try and see why it is that I see much of the coverage as unsatisfying and I keep coming back to the notion that I'm unhappy because it isn't spun my way. My net assessment is that the Iranians are going to go for a breakout capability (at a minimum) and that we might be able to hold them to that and keep them from actually weaponizing (and that that should be our line in the sand), but I'm not sure that a reporter has any business leaning forward that much.

"Political Islam is a dream or a nightmare, but not a sociological reality." - Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah

quotes made by El Baradei out of context to support Sangers assertion that Iran had made great leaps in progress, and by doing so sensationalized the issue and mislead his readers. The sensationalizing is the worst part becuase what we need now is cooler heads to think about the issue in a way you have thought it out. I don't disagree with your conclusions. What concerns me is this story not be turned into another aluminum tubes thingy and Cheney and Bush take it and run with it. I think that's a reasonable concern on my part and something worthy of criticism on Sanger's part.

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

Jeffery's ticked because the quotes were used in a way that makes it look like they were directly confirming the related evidence rather than being billed as the general statements they were, but I really fail to see how this somehow would lead one to overstate the Iranian capability. The salient bit is that they have crossed a Rubicon of sorts and the previous "no spinning centrifuges" strategy is no longer tenable - al-Baradei certainly would seem to think so and the quotes reflect this. I don't think there's a lot that's been mischaracterized. As someone who reads a lot of source transcripts and listens to a lot of event podcasts, the use of quotes like this is one hell of a lot more common than most folks realize. Not a good thing, but if that's the worst that we can point to in the way of journalistic sins, it's a long way from Judy and what we saw previously.

Folks can reasonably disagree as to the degree of progress, but when I look at one cascade running maybe 20% of the time as opposed to, what, eight cascades running maybe half the time and further installation progressing at a goodly clip, I tend to evaluate the progress as significant. I can see why Paul Kerr assesses that they haven't achieved much in the way of a technical breakthrough, but in a political context (and as I've said that's what the Iranian language around "industrial scale" vs. "research/experimental" seems to me to be all about) there's been a notable change.

I concur about the aluminium tubes notion - what I think is missing is a compelling popular narrative that actually tells folks what the net assessment really is. There's lots of popular narratives that push the view that kinetics are imminently necessary against the Iranians - and I don't see a lot of good competing contra narratives. In my view most of them fall into the trap of taking as a given the notion that kinetics are imminent (how many CVN rotations have we seen billed as "the one" that's going to be the one that attacks Iran?) - I don't think I've seen nearly as much in the popular domain that really takes apart that notion at its root and lays out the case in detail as to why kinetics are a really bad idea and not yet necessary, even if they were viable in the first place.

"Political Islam is a dream or a nightmare, but not a sociological reality." - Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah