A Quote by David Kay
I am worried because I'm hearing some of the same signals about Iran and its nuclear program that were heard as the Bush administration made its case for the war in Iraq. 'It's déjà vu all over again.
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Some of the same politicians and pundits that are so quick to reject the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program are the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would take a few months.
There's an opposite to déjà vu. They call it jamais vu. It's when you meet the same people or visit places, again and again, but each time is the first. Everybody is always a stranger. Nothing is ever familiar.
I have gained and lost the same 10 pounds so many times over and over again my cellulite must have deja vu!
The issue has two dimensions. One is the legal dimension and the other one is the issue at the realpolitik. [In the] legal realm, we believe in equal rights for all people in all nations. If Israel, the United States, Russia, Pakistan, other countries, China, have the right to have a nuclear program and nuclear bomb, Iran, too, must have that same right. Now, at the realm of realpolitik, because there is a global consensus against Iran, and because there are all manner of dangers facing Iran, I am opposed to this program.
It's like deja-vu, all over again.
I feel déjà vu a lot. Someone said that means that you're living your life the right way because maybe you have foresight, because then, when something actually happens, it feels like déjà vu. I like to think of fate that way.
I think the Bush Administration had basically inherited a policy toward Iraq from the Reagan/Bush Administration that saw Iraq as a kind of fire wall against Iranian fundamentalism. And as it developed over the 1980s, it became a real political run-a-muck... even though the Iraqis were known to be harboring Palestinian terrorists.
The intelligence services would probably be in a better position to make an assessment of the advancement of the Iranian nuclear program than Podhoretz or Ledeen. They don't have access to any specific information. So for them to dismiss it has no great value because they have no authority whatsoever on this issue. For them to push forward with their efforts to get a war started between the U.S. and Iran, you certainly cannot say that Iran does not have a nuclear program. If you say that, then the justification for war has basically been eliminated.
Ironically, the single thing that has strengthened Iran over the last several years has been the war in Iraq. Iraq was Iran's mortal enemy. That was cleared away. And what we've seen over the last several years is Iran's influence grow. They have funded Hezbollah, they have funded Hamas, they have gone from zero centrifuges to 4,000 centrifuges to develop a nuclear weapon.
I'll be running, the ball will be in the air and I'll feel like I've been in that moment before. It's basically deja vu, like an active deja vu, I guess you could say.
The alternative, no limits on Iran's nuclear program, no inspections, an Iran that's closer to a nuclear weapon, the risk of regional nuclear arms race, and the greater risk of war - all that would endanger our [American] security.
The IAEA should be worried, as I am worried about it, because North Korea is now a nuclear power state with a ballistic missile program.
It was during George W. Bush's presidency that Iran mastered the nuclear fuel cycle, that they built covert facilities, that they stocked them with centrifuges, that they were spinning merrily away toward getting a nuclear-weapons program.
I feel, first of all, very privileged that these people think enough of me that they made me commissioner. And it's almost like, as Yogi Berra said, 'deja vu all over again.'
The targets of George W. Bush's 'axis of evil' speech were not Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Those regimes don't need a State of the Union address to know where they stand with the Bush administration. The intended audience was elsewhere: in France, Russia and China.
The Bush administration actually started out with an open mind towards Iran, by all indications. In fact, early in the administration, the White House tasked the various agencies of government to do an inter-agency review of Iran policy, as it did with Iraq policy and most of the big areas of the world.
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