WSJ Editorial on Iran-India leads off with a lie

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.)

Ali Gharib

Ali Gharib is a New York-based journalist on U.S. foreign policy with a focus on the Middle East and Central Asia. His work has appeared at Inter Press Service, where he was the Deputy Washington Bureau Chief; the Buffalo Beast; Huffington Post; Mondoweiss; Right Web; and Alternet. He holds a Master's degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. A proud Iranian-American and fluent Farsi speaker, Ali was born in California and raised in D.C.

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