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Read More On Seymour

By Brian Montopoli

April 14, 2006 / 12:53 PM EDT / CBS News

(CBS)

New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh's recent piece on the Bush administration's hawkish plans for Iran, which he claims reflect a desire for regime change and involve the possible use of nuclear weapons to achieve it, have increased scrutiny on the administration's strategy regarding the axis of evil member. Hersh has an impressive track record as an investigative reporter, but, as we've mentioned before, it's important to keep in mind that the story relies heavily on anonymous sources, who may have agendas other than getting out the truth. The sources could be trying to get Iran to the bargaining table on behalf of the White House, as Howard Kurtz theorized. They could be trying to kill plans to attack Iran by exaggerating the administration's intentions. They could be telling the truth. It's impossible to know.

Now the Boston Phoenix's Mark Jurkowitz raises a pair of different issues I thought worth considering:

…reading "The Iran Plans" can be as frustrating as it is enlightening. Hersh portrays an administration — already militarily and politically bogged down in Iraq — using the same philosophy driven by the same people to repeat the same policy in Iran. In that case, two huge questions come to mind.
First, can it really be true that the situation in Iraq hasn't given this administration a little more reason to pause, to view the virtues of multi-lateralism more warmly, and to question its ability to control events and manage the spiraling fallout from a major military operation? Is that possible?
Second, how will the great mass of American people — now giving Bush the lowest grades of his presidency and giving Capitol Hill Republicans the willies about the 2006 midterm elections — react if and when key administration figures start making belligerent noises about attacking another country in the Middle East on the basis of fears about its ability to acquire WMD and use them against us?
Hersh doesn't fill in those very important blanks. And if he can't finish the job, then New Yorker editor David Remnick should assign someone to do a companion piece looking at the political and philosophical questions raised by Hersh's reporting. The venerable sleuth can always raise your pulse rate and blood pressure. But somebody needs to add some much-needed context.