When the Washington Post published a headline suggesting that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, the newspaper’s ombudsman responded to reader complaints, intervened, and warned his organization not to “play into the hands of those who are seeking further confrontation with Iran.” Patrick Pexton did so because while evidence made available by authoritative sources like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggests Iran’s nuclear program has “possible military dimensions,” no hard facts determine concretely that Iran reconstituted a full-scale nuclear weapons program after its suspension in 2003.

Now, the New York Times public editor chimed in on a Times story mirroring almost exactly (and citing) the Washington Post. The issue came to the fore on the heels of a January 5 Times story that described “a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran’s nuclear program has a military objective.” The story on the website was subsequently amended and this language removed, but the Times has not yet issued a correction. Public editor Arthur Brisbane, in a blog post today responding to reader objections, lays out several quoted phrases from the latest IAEA report that point towards possible weapons work, but then notes:

These words strongly suggest Iran is conducting a nuclear weapons program but it is noteworthy that nowhere does the IAEA come right out and say this. The agency stops short of making a clear conclusive statement.

But he needn’t only rely on the IAEA. The publicly available reports on the most recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the consensus opinion of U.S. intelligence agencies, indicate that the U.S. does not believe Iran has as yet undertaken the final decision to build a nuclear bomb.

Brisbane concluded that the Times’s earlier language was wrong:

I think the readers are correct on this. The Times hasn’t corrected the story but it should because this is a case of when a shorthand phrase doesn’t do justice to a nuanced set of facts. In this case, the distinction between the two is important because the Iranian program has emerged as a possible casus belli.

Indeed, when discussing war and peace, the stakes are high, and sloppy news coverage can, as we saw with Iraq, help push a nation to war. Brisbane is right to recognize this.

While Iran’s nuclear program is a serious issue that must be confronted, those such as GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is free to, should he like, ignore the facts. But it’s refreshing to know that the newsrooms of two of the nation’s leading papers regard scrupulous accuracy as an important part of their work, especially on these matters.

Despite the hawkish foreign policy positions of the GOP presidential field, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has set himself apart in giving voice to some of the most extreme assertions about Iran’s nuclear program. In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Santorum asserted that an Iranian nuclear weapon was a near certainty unless the U.S. takes military action.

Santorum’s views completely ignore the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) most recent report — the IAEA expressed “serious concerns” about the possible military dimension of the nuclear but did not assert that Iran had resumed its nuclear weapons program — and the reported consensus opinion of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has not yet chosen to make a weapon. Hannity led by asking Santorum about Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s recent statement that Iran is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon:

HANNITY: Let me ask you one national security question. Leon Panetta was on, “Face the Nation” this weekend, he was asked whether or not Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon, his answer was, no. And you said that you would, as president, would take out Iranian nuclear site.

SANTORUM: The amount of cognitive dis[sonance], the amount of just completely ignoring the facts. [...] They’re building this nuclear facility next to where the Mahdi is supposed to return.

Where their savior is supposed to come back who’s going to bring about this glorious victory for radical Islam. It is so obvious. Why would a country that has one of the richest supplies of oil and natural gas, build a nuclear power plant?

Watch it:

But what appears “so obvious” to Santorum is not so obvious to the U.S. intelligence community or the IAEA, a set of institutions presumed to have access to far more intelligence capabilities on Iran’s nuclear program than the former senator from Pennsylvania.

Following the release of the most recent IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program in November, a senior White House official told the National Journal:

The IAEA does not assert that Iran has resumed a full scale nuclear weapons program nor does it have a program [sic] about how advanced the programs really are.

And Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in testimony on Capitol Hill last year, agreed with Senate Armed Serves Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) that “Iran has not made a decision as of this point to restart its nuclear weapons program.”

None of the statements from the IAEA, the White House or the U.S. intelligence community preclude the possibility that Iran may someday pursue a nuclear weapon or seeks to develop a “breakout capability” while stopping short of building a nuclear weapon. But Santorum’s willingness to order airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear program appears to be more strongly rooted in his hatred of “radical Islam” and Iran than any established facts about Iran’s nuclear intentions.

Looking back on the run-up to the Iraq war, neoconservatives and their allies in the Bush administration took heavy criticism for engaging in “groupthink” that brooked no dissent. Bogus charges of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs constituted the most glaringly obvious example of this foible. Now, with Iran in the cross hairs, a prominent neoconservative scholar is falling prey to the same problem.

In a blog post yesterday on Commentary magazine’s website, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) scholar Max Boot goes beyond simply ignoring ideas with which he disagrees, and informs readers that no such credible ideas even exist. Boot’s article, headlined “A Powerful Case for Force Against Iran,” picks up on an article from Foreign Affairs magazine, CFR’s bi-monthly journal.

Boot’s fellow CFR scholar Matthew Kroenig, in an article entitled “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option,” wrote that “a military strike intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, if managed carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat.” Calling the piece a “powerful and sober article in favor of bombing Iran,” Boot writes that Kroenig “knocks down pretty much all of the objections [to bombing] that have been made.” Boot’s approbation should come as no surprise, since he himself has called for war against Iran. But the most shocking part of Boot’s post was his concluding line:

I have yet to see (have I missed it?) an equally detailed and convincing exposition of the anti-bombing side.

There are plenty of examples of good articles laying out the case against war with Iran. Some demonstrate that, while Boot prefers bombing, the multi-lateral U.N. nuclear sanctions shepherded by the Obama administration have actually slowed Iran’s progress. Some give realistic assessments of just what the (limited) benefits of a strike would be. Others give sobering assessments of potential fallout from such a strike. Just yesterday, Dr. Adam B. Lowther, a faculty member at the Air Force’s Air University, wrote a long article against bombing.

But what was most stunning about Boot’s conclusion was that the Foreign Affairs piece in question faced such harsh criticism from a well-known international relations scholar that Kroenig felt the need to respond. Harvard scholar Steven Walt wrote on his blog at Foreign Policy magazine’s website that Kroenig’s piece was “remarkably poor piece of advocacy,” and from there picked it apart for maximizing benefits of a strike and minimizing negative consequences. The devastating critique apparently compelled Kroenig to respond on Foreign Policy, followed by a less-than-satisfied rejoinder from Walt. (Others have weighed in on the spat, too.)

How did Boot miss this exchange over the very article he’s hyping in a top-tier magazine covering his very subject area? Boot’s claim raises the possibility that he willfully ignores counter arguments. But his parenthetical interjection — “have I missed it?” — suggests either he’s incapable of using Google or his reading list simply doesn’t cast a net wide enough to catch articles that don’t fit his ideological predispositions.

Rick Santorum is doing his best to outdo Jon Huntsman as the GOP presidential field’s most militaristic candidate on Iran. Huntsman said last month that he’d launch a ground invasion to try to stop Iran from getting nukes. The former Pennsylvania senator rang in the new year earlier this month by telling NBC’s David Gregory that attacking Iran over its nuclear program is part of his plan. Santorum defended his plan a few days later, arguing that attacking Iran would “prevent a war.”

While one might reasonably argue back that attacking Iran would actually be the start of said war, Santorum doesn’t see it that way. Last night on CNN, he told John King that launching air strikes would not mean staring a war with Iran:

SANTORUM: Some have suggested by taking strikes, again, if that is absolutely necessary, to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon will start a war. I disagree. It will stop a horrible war that will happen when Iran will be funding terrorist organizations and other groups that will be waging jihad around the world, and particularly here in the homeland of this country.

So this is not a — this is not something that I take lightly. I take it very seriously. We’re going to give Iran every opportunity to step away from the brink of being a nuclear power, but if they do not, then we cannot let that happen.

Watch the clip:

So it appears that when Santorum wants to use the U.S. military to blow things up, that should not be classified as “war,” per se. A President Santorum will only use American bombs for preventing one. However, the Iranians probably won’t see it that way.