Yesterday was one of my bad days, but one consequence of that was that I zoned out in front of the TV for long stretches. That allowed me to hear an endless procession of talking heads spend time talking about what we should do about Iran.
The striking thing was not that there was lots of criticism from conservatives about President Obama’s negotiating strategy. The striking thing was the complete lack of any real alternative from these folks. I listened to interviewer after interviewer ask various people what they’d do instead, and the answers were all the weakest of weak tea. A few mentioned tighter sanctions, but without much conviction since (a) sanctions are already pretty tight and (b) even the hawks seem to understand that mere sanctions are unlikely to stop Iran’s nuclear program anyway. Beyond that there was nothing.
That is, with the refreshing (?) exception of Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who sounded a bit like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men after being badgered a bit by Wolf Blitzer. Military action? You’re damn right I want to see military action. Or words to that effect, anyway. But of course, this sentiment was behind the scenes everywhere, even if most of the hawkish talking heads didn’t quite say it so forthrightly. I noticed that even President Obama, in his interview with Reuters, specifically mentioned “military action,” rather than the usual euphemism of “all cards are on the table.”
In my vague, laymanish way, this sure makes me wonder just how seriously military action really is on the table. I mean, I realize there are no really great options here, but a major war against Iran sure seems like a helluva bad idea—so bad that even the hawks ought to be thinking twice about this. That’s especially true since I’ve heard no one who thinks it would permanently disable Iran’s nuclear program anyway. It would just cause them to redouble their efforts and to do a better job of hiding it.
I’m not saying anything new here. It only struck me a little harder than usual after watching so many interviews about Iran in the space of just a few hours (and I wasn’t even watching Fox at all). There’s really no Plan B here, and even the hawks are mostly reluctant to explicitly say that we should just up and launch a massive air assault on Iran. It’s a weird, almost ghostly controversy we’re having.
