From Time magazine's China Blog:
Now, mind you, it's important to remember that China under almost any circumstances was not going to step away from doing energy deals with Iran, even if their business partners in Tehran were drinking toasts to the imminent arrival of the Twelfth Imam with highly enriched uranium and threatening to nuke Israel the day after tomorrow.
But the timing of this announcement, in which SINOPEC has signed a deal to help develop the mammouth Yadavaran oil field, comes just days after the so called intelligence community in the United States presented the Bush administration with its don't worry, be happy assessment of Iran's nuclear program
(an assessment that my colleague Joe Klein calls--remarkably--"the truth" in the pages of this week's magazine. The truth? From the CIA? About Iran? Surely you jest, Joe. What the CIA knows about Iran comes mainly from the Israelis, the Saudis, and the Egyptians. On our own, as the saying goes, we don't know jack about Iran, so the informed question now is: do the Israelis, the Egyptians or the Saudis agree with the US "intelligence community's" conclusions? The Israelis, according to published reports, have already weighed in, and they vote no. Any bets out there on where the other two stand?)...MORE
