Conventional  wisdom dictates that 9/11 is not something to be exploited. Yet conservatives have taken advantage of anniversary since the very first year when they used it to kick of electoral activities for the 2002 US Senate elections where control of the chamber was in the balance and the Iraq War authorization vote which was taken right before the election (Paul Welstone’s “no” vote on that resolution was his last vote before passing away in a tragic plane crash). The trend of conservatives using 9/11 for political ends continued on Friday as we will discuss shortly.

The conscious twisting  of 9/11’s legacy by neoconservatives led directly to the US engagement in Iraq which cost us 8 years nearly 5,000 lives and damaged the life of so many other American soldiers who were wounded in an absolutely unnecessary war.

Right after 9/11 Iran began cooperating with American intelligence officials to aid the US invasion of Afghanistan, the attempts to oust the Taliban and tactically encouraged American intervention in Iraq, which many who studied the region realized would benefit Iran directly. The Iranians wisely saw 9/11 which they were not connected to as a way to get back into the US’s good graces while knocking out regional enemies that were either connected to the terrorist attack or Washington WANTED TO BELIEVE were connected.

For the right reasons or not, Iran and the United States seem to be embarked on a new era of cooperation until George W. Bush needing a third country to lump into an “axis of evil,” the decidedly simple concept meant to scare an already fearful American public about the stakes in the “War on Terror.”  The fact that Iran counted Saddam Hussien as an enemy, had covertly aided the American invasion of Afghanistan and had virtually no relationship with North Korea was easily parked on the side while Bush sought to make the public think the Apocalypse was around the corner (while asking Americans not to sacrifice during World War II and simply go about business like normal and leave the real sacrifice to those in the all-volunteer military) .

Conservative media now in a frenzy about Iran used the 9/11 anniversary to make incredible assertions on Friday even though as we pointed out above no connection existed between Iran and 9/11. I will let Media Matters describe the rest of the story.