In the course of trying to explain to Tom Friedman why his diplomatic outreach to Iran is no threat to America or our allies, President Obama sounded for a brief moment like the kind of warmonger he is normally heard denouncing.

Usually, the president’s go-to rhetorical ploy is to paint a dire picture of the consequences of U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. In his announcement last week of the framework agreement, for example, he dismissed the military option by warning that “we can bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, thereby starting another war in the Middle East.” He never explains how airstrikes targeting a half-dozen sites would start a region-wide war, but the goal here, of course, is to make military action sound like it would have such terrible consequences that no reasonable person could possibly support it.