Iran Bomb Five Years Away — in 1988

I read with interest and amusement, once again, that the military is warning that Iran will have nuclear weapons in as little as five years. Let’s ignore that there is no evidence that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons program, that they really have little substantial to gain from such a program, and that we can be almost totally certain that even if they have nukes, they will never use them. I want to focus on something else, one of the earliest political/foreign policy memories I have.

I think I might have been 7, or 8, or 9ish… and I distinctly recall my dread at the idea that Iran — of course run by insane psychos who only want to kill Americans for the sheer fun of it — would have nuclear weapons in as little as five years. I can’t come up with anything online (maybe a better googler can), and I don’t know where I heard it or who it was that said it, but I remember dwelling on it for a while. If you think kids don’t pay attention, if you think they aren’t affected emotionally and possibly developmentally by the constant braying about the relatively minor threat of terrorism and the “threat” from various and sundry enemies overseas, think again.

Anyway my point is: It’s been around 20 years. Where the hell are those nukes? They’re just now going through the first stages of refining uranium. And once again, not for the first or even second time, we’re being shrieked at about the nuclear threat from Iran. Some Americans I have had contact with actually think that Iran is RIGHT NOW building nuclear weapons. The propaganda is working on some.

But why should we believe them now?

UPDATE: Thanks to Paul who sent this link, another five-year prediction from 1995 [pdf].