Who says the Bush administration never learns from its mistakes?

One of the main raps against the invasion of Iraq is the fact that significant WMDs were never found after the invasion. Well, for the war with Iran (and Syria, and as it turns out, North Korea), they're not making that mistake again. They're finding the WMDs first and going to war after.

The Times of London reports:

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2512380.ece

Israel's at war with Syria-- which means we're at war with Iran. The appeaser students who urged that their classmates not cause Ahmadinejad too much grief at his debutante ball at Columbia, because it will only play into the administration's drumbeat for war, are behind the times. And The Times.

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POSTSCRIPT: The initial tenor of the comments, as well as the fact that folks raced to disrecommend this entry, suggest to me that people imagine me licking my lips at the prospect of bloodshed in Iraq and saluting our Commander in Chief for finally getting into the gory work.

This is not the case. I fear the possible outcomes of going to war with Iran-- but unlike kneejerk pacifists, I also fear the possible outcomes of NOT going to war to stop Iran. I recognize that we have a real enemy (who has, in many ways, been at war with us since 1979, and certainly is actively at war in Iraq right now) and we will probably need to do something. And that appearing, at least, to be willing to go to full-fledged war is an important weapon in itself.

Furthermore, I fear that going to war is the one thing that would help the evil regime there. So checkmating their activities outside Iran, as this episode in Syria seems to have done, is perhaps the best thing we can do in the short term to worry them without giving them a propaganda coup to rally their populace with.

Anyway, if you want a concise overview of the war with Iran as it's beginning to play out, read here:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/the_buildup_to_a_usiran_war.html