Resurrecting A Stupid Idea

Take it as you will this Easter Sunday that our old warmongering right-wing nutjob friend Bill Kristol is exhuming the idea that Obama must attack Iran before Israel is forced to play our hand for us.

The Obama administration should be seriously considering a strike on Iran, according to neoconservative Fox News contributor Bill Kristol.

An Israeli Deputy Defense Minister said last week that he expected Israel would have to attack Iran within a year. Kristol believes it would be better for the US to attack first.

"I think we have to have a credible threat of force and the preparation to use force against Iran. It would be much better if we used force against -- to delay the Iranian nuclear program than if Israel did and there is no evidence that the US government is being at all serious about the use force there," Kristol told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

The unsaid Village Idiocy here is even far more dangerous:  it's the only way Obama can atone for his sin of believing that Palestinians are human beings, and therefore the only way he can save himself and the Democrats from the looming annihilation in November.

You're going to hear a lot more about this idea that Obama "has no choice" but to attack Iran before November.  I'm just waiting to see which folks in the Democratic Party latch on to this first.  I honestly can't think of a worse possible thing Obama could do right now other than embroil America with the flames of a third war and reduce what's left of our economy, or international standing, and our morality to bitter ashes.

But count on the fact that the pressure coming from certain quarters of the Village and the Dems and GOP alike will be that Obama needs to rattle that saber loudly enough that Tehran -- and more importantly the American people -- get the message.  The pressure on Obama to do so will be immense.  He's going to have to withstand it, or we're all pretty much done for.

The consequences of an attack on Iran would be catastrophic on a number of sociopolitical levels.  We would gain nothing in the long run from such a complete disaster.

But the song remains the same, and the volume will be cranked up over the next few weeks and months.  If a nearly universally despised Dubya didn't take the bait, it's hard to imagine Obama will.  Then again, Dubya got us into his own messes.  Even he shied away from this one.