Letters to the Editor
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Bush the incurious
I think the explanation for why Bush himself kept coasting along on WWIII rhetoric long after the contradictory information came in is that he had already made up his mind and wasn't going to listen to any new information. This is a man who is congenitally incurious and also couldn't reason his way out of a wet paper bag, at least not on matters of intellectual substance. (I guess we have to credit him with having a nose for politics).
Even if he was briefed 20 times on this since July he may not have heard the message, so painfully obvious to everybody else.
And before the trolls come out, I'm not saying the US shouldn't have an Iran policy, or a nuclear non-proliferation policy. I'm saying that in the end the Bush administration hasn't been thinking about Iran, or non-proliferation, but rather about their own tough-guy posturing and Churchillian egos. These are people who will not confront reality, on a basic level.