While trying to make sense of David Broder's economic theories, Ryan Avent's head hits the desk:
Either Mr Broder thinks that Iran will take a war effort on a par with that for World War II, in which case we might expect him to be a little more sceptical about just whether or not an Iran attack is a good idea (lots of Americans died in World War II!). Or he's not actually relying on the extent of spending to dig America out of its weak recovery, but instead is imagining war preparations as something like a light switchon means the economy grows, off not. But if that's all it is, then why not declare war on some uninhabited island somewhere? Or the moon? Or, you know, ignorance? Then maybe fewer people would be killed!
Larison imagines how the GOP would actually react to war with Iran (does anyone still think they are in any way serious about national security?):
Obama has given the hawks all they could want in Afghanistan, but that has not stopped them from railing against him as the second coming of Jimmy Carter because he set a withdrawal deadline. If Obama claimed that Iran was about to construct a nuclear device, Republican hawks would react in a few different ways, and none of them would help Obama politically. Many would formally support the military action, but they would happily attack Obama in the process. Some would berate Obama for having let things get to this point, and they would actually blame him for having previously “failed” to stop it. Despite having spent decades fretting about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons, they would pin an Iranian bomb solely on Obama, whose alleged weakness and “appeasement” invited the Iranian threat. McCain would be all over cable television saying something like, “This is what happens when you try to engage with dictatorships. Our military is paying the price for the President’s failed leadership.” No doubt they would throw in some added shots at his Israel and Afghanistan decisions in the process. “While Obama was wasting our resources on nation-building in Afghanistan, the real threat was gathering in Iran,” they would tell us. It won’t matter if this is consistent with their own previous statements or not.