This post is from March 2009. Facts and links may have changed since. See more from that month

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Wonk Pissing Contest

Cross-posted from TotalWonkerr.com.

The Iran breakout debate has officially become tiresome.

Anyone bothering to read this blog will remember the instant analysis of the last IAEA report that ISIS put out. It got quite a bit of attention at the time.

Some of you might also have seen what Glaser and Kemp wrote in response.

Anyone on the ISIS email list certainly knows, because ISIS called them out yesterday, for some reason.

Kemp and Glaser made a quick reply.

Knowledge doesn’t grow without criticism and debate. I’ve certainly learned a thing or two from this exchange. But some of it seems waaaay too close to being a determined defense of a hasty analysis that grabbed headlines and caused confusion. This approach ill serves the cause of informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security.

That is all.

Joshua Pollack

Writing on ACW 2008–2025

Joshua Pollack used to be a consultant to the U.S. government on arms control, nonproliferation, deterrence, and the like. Now he's the editor of the Nonproliferation Review and a Senior Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), based in Washington, DC.

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