This is the first sentence of an editorial, from the neoconservative Wall Street Journal opinion page, about Iran and India’s relationship:
Since Iran announced its intention to build a nuclear bomb, it has had a friend in India.
The first clause of this sentence contains an error so egregious it can only be considered a lie. The Islamic Republic has never announced any such intention.
If one insists that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons covertly and states it as a fact — even without noting repeated Iranian denials on the basis that such weapons are forbidden by Islam — this might be excusable. Most credible analysts in the West believe that Iran is indeed pursuing either a weapon or a so-called breakout capability that would enable it to produce a bomb relatively quickly, as Japan is reportedly capable of doing.
But to assert something so factually inaccurate as Iran announcing its intention to build a bomb, well, that’s just how neoconservatives build their case for war.
(H/t to Jasmine Ramsey’s twitter feed.)
