The White House released a statement today accusing Syria of having been weeks away from developing a nuclear reactor with aid from North Korea before being stopped. Israel reportedly bombed a suspected reactor last year, but the program is suspected to have continued. Reuters article HERE.

Syria denies the claims the Bush Administration has added their country to the list of nations they have wrongly accused of owning WMDs. Video of the Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, doing damage control on CNN is HERE.

The problem here lies in the credibility the Bush Administration has. We are feeling the ripple effects of the poor intelligence the Bush Administration used during their foreign policy sham before the Iraq war. America (and the world) fell for the propaganda hook line and sinker so now any sort of information leak linking a country to nuclear pursuits gets extra scrutiny. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice… shame on me.

The problem with our new cynicism is that Iran, Syria, and North Korea are more dangerous than Iraq ever was. Any hope of our being taken seriously has been disrupted by the last five years of realities that came out of Iraq. There were no WMDs and the world hasn’t forgotten that.

The Bush Administration traded going after a nuisance over the possibility of going after real threats.

Post-Iraq mentalities could mean we will be either less likely to proactively defend ourselves (right wing spin) or our new distrust will make us more willing to pursue diplomacy (liberal spin). Either way, Americans require more time in taking action than before, something that Bush historically hates.

A good AP article provides a Q/A which asks the question: Can we trust the White House on this? Find the article HERE. Timing, motive, and credibility are examined.

Slate.com put together blogger arguments and reactions to the Syrian plot HERE.

This particular excerpt is where I more or less am standing for now: (read the TPM portion in a sarcastic tone)

«But David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo points to the Syrian ambassador’s warning of U.S. intelligence claims about Iraq to underscore that our credibility is nil: “Isn’t there some sort of statute of limitations on our goof? I mean it’s been five years since Colin Powell’s UN presentation. And look at all we’ve done since: brought peace and stability to Iraq, made real progress on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, calmed world financial markets.” The Carpetbagger Report’s liberal Steven Benen offers a ditto: “The Bush gang probably didn’t need another incident dealing with questionable intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, but it looks like they have one anyway.”»

My take:

We live in a dangerous global community, but right now it’s too soon to tell where this particular strain of suspicions and information will take us. I’m not making any conclusions yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if crying wolf so many times has affected our ability to take a real threat seriously. Now is where we will see the true negative affects of our Iraqi intelligence blunder domestically and abroad.

I’m waiting for Hillary and McCain to start stumping about this during their campaigns while Obama remains intelligently cautious.  How they handle this new “information” will show how much of Bush’s foreign policy attitudes they share.