THE LESSON OF THE ABSENT WMD:

Sanctions rattle Iran, spur talk of shake-up (Iason Athanasiadis, 2/01/07, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

Even before the sanctions were approved, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been weakened by his inability to fulfill campaign promises to stem rising inflation and by doubts over the wisdom of his statements questioning the Holocaust and threatening Israel.

Now, suggestions are being raised that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is to change several key officials, including Ali Larijani, the head of the National Security Council; Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki; and Ambassador to the United Nations Javad Zarif.

"There is a deep concern and uncertainty on behalf of the Iranian leaders about the consequences of the nuclear program of Ahmadinejad's administration," said Hossein Bastani, the former general secretary of the Association of Iranian Journalists.

If the left would stop whining about WMD lies for a minute they might learn the lesson that the President did: saber-rattling got Saddam and Qaddafi to give up on their nuclear programs.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 1, 2007 10:14 PM