“If all else fails, if after all the work we’ve done there’s nothing else we can do besides take military action, then of course you take military action,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told the South Carolina debate audience on Saturday night. Two days earlier, I had interviewed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on the same subject, though my question supposed that Israel would strike at Iran’s nuclear program.

“If Israel acts to defend itself by striking at that capacity,” I asked Newt, “what ought the president of the United States, either our current or our next one, to do on the day that strike happens?