The latest revision to the Iraq talking points says bad intelligence about NBC weapons is irrelevant. According to Vice-President Dick Cheney in an interview with ABC's Johnathon Karl, war with Iraq was a forgone conclusion and the right thing to do.

Frank Gaffney, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, said the N got conflated with the BC or some such nonsense on Hardball, but it doesn't matter because there was no way to know that in 2003. With 20/20 hindsight, of course, we can see that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do and 4,000 Americans “had to die.”

Meanwhile, Gareth Porter spends 12 days in Iran talking to government policy think tanks and finds pessimism over Obama's naming of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, mirroring sentiments in the US. In a stunning departure from western journalistic convention, Porter portrays the beings he spoke with in Iran as actual humans, rather than savage animals.

Due in no small part to Porter's work, it is now crystal clear that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and no intention of having one. Evidence to the contrary has been shown as a forgery, with strong circumstantial evidence pointing to Israel as the fabricators.

Add to that Thomas Fingar's reiteration this week of last year's National Intelligence Estimate showing that Iran suspended its nuclear weapon program in 2003 and Supreme Leader Ayatollah AliKhamenei's fatwa that nuclear weapons are against Islam, and you have a good picture of a democratic nation with no nuclear weapons program, no nuclear weapons capability, and no intent to have a nuclear weapons program.

But, as the war party's new talking points go, that's no problem.