Operation Merlin

In the maelstrom of mainstream media attention given James Risen's book, scant attention was paid to a matter of far greater import than the NSA's international wiretaps. Namely, "Operation Merlin", a Bill Clinton-approved plan to give the Iranians blueprints of nuclear weapons.

Using a Russian scientist as a go-between, the operation reportedly gave the Iranians plans for nuclear devices. And the blueprints incorporated certain design flaws that would ostensibly render the devices useless. Risen reported:

But in what may turn out to be one of the greatest foreign policy blunders of all time, Operation Merlin backfired when the Russian scientist spotted the design flaws immediately - and even offered to help Iran fix the problems. Risen said the Clinton-approved plan ended up handing Tehran "one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short."

Let's just pause a moment. When you really stop and consider the Clinton legacy, you come up with some pretty frightening stuff.

 - Clearing the way for U.S. companies to sell nuclear technology to the Chinese, an initiative opposed by just about everyone in the defense community for reasons of national security.

 - A much-publicized dalliance with a White House intern (not to mention perjury), for which any normal human would have lost their security clearance.

 - Ignoring Bin Laden's declaration of war and other alarm claxons regarding the seriousness of the extremist threat and, instead, treating the series of eight related attacks as a law enforcement problem.

 - Getting duped by the North Koreans in a deal that gave another despot nuclear technology.

The very possibility of the Clinton team at the helm again makes my blood run cold.