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POPSThe Axis of Evil: An Idiot's Guide: David Frum Joseph Cirincione, the man most widely identified as Obama's top nuclear-affairs adviser, last September pooh-poohed as "far-right" "nonsense" the early rumors that the Syrian nuclear facility was indeed a nuclear facility. Cirincione wrote on the Foreign Policy blog: "This appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted 'intelligence' to key reporters in order to promote a pre-existing political agenda. If this sounds like the run-up to the war in Iraq, it should. This time it appears aimed at derailing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that administration hardliners think is appeasement. Some Israelis want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria." Cirincione seems to have been so determined to avert what he regarded as the threat of U.S. over-reaction--so eager to promote dialogue with Syria--that he blinded himself to the reality of a nuclear threat.