Bush's Alternate Reality

And -- especially after the suspicious dismissal of Admiral William J. "Fox" Fallon earlier this month, and given Cheney's conviction that the legislative branch can't limit the executive's war-making powers -- it may be worth asking ourselves if there's anything that would prevent the president and vice president from acting on their delusions.

What the President Said

Here's the exchange in question, from Bush's interview with Parichehr Farzam of Radio Farda:

Farzam: "Mr. President, as you and your allies launched a global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism, what do you think is your most important challenge to expose and stop the secretive ambition of Iran's government to enrich uranium, while assuring its citizens that their happiness and prosperity and peace is a benefit within their reach?"

Bush: "Sure, absolutely. Well, one thing is, is to reiterate my belief that the Iranians should have a civilian nuclear power program. It's in their right to have it. The problem is the government cannot be trusted to enrich uranium because one, they've hidden programs in the past and they may be hiding one now, who knows; and secondly, they've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- some in the Middle East. And that's unacceptable to the United States and it's unacceptable to the world."

William Branigin was first to break this story yesterday, writing on washingtonpost.com that, contrary to what Bush said, "the Iranian government has not publicly declared a desire to obtain such weapons. In fact, Iranian leaders have said the opposite, repeatedly insisting that they do not want nuclear arms and asserting that their nuclear program is intended only to generate electricity. . . . "

"Asked to explain Bush's comment, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he spoke in 'shorthand,' combining Iranian threats against Israel with concerns about Iran's nuclear program.

"'The president was referring to the Iranian regime's previous statements regarding their desire to wipe Israel off the map,' Johndroe said. 'The president shorthanded his answer with regard to Iran's previously secret nuclear weapons program and their current enrichment and ballistic missile testing.'"

Branigin also put Johndroe's depiction of Iran's view of Israel in its proper context: "In an October 2005 speech to a conference on a 'World without Zionism,' Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by a state-run Iranian news agency as agreeing with a statement by Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that 'Israel must be wiped off the map.' Iran's foreign minister later said the comment had been incorrectly translated from Farsi and that Ahmadinejad was 'talking about the [Israeli] regime,' which Iran does not recognize and wants to see collapse.

"According to Farsi-speaking commentators including Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan, Ahmadinejad's exact quote was, 'The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.' Cole has written that Ahmadinejad was not calling for the 'Nazi-style extermination of a people,' but was expressing the wish that the Israeli government would disappear just as the shah of Iran's regime had collapsed in 1979."

Robin Wright writes in this morning's Washington Post: "Experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation said the president's statement was wrong. 'That's as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true. It's a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran,' said Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

"Others said it is unclear whether the president believes what he said or was deliberately distorting Iran's position.

"'The Iranian government is on the record across the board as saying it does not want a nuclear weapon. There's plenty of room for skepticism about these assertions. But it's troubling for the administration to indicate that Iran is explicitly embracing the program as a means of destroying another country,' said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the State Department until last year and now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center."