Pillory the American official who deigns to be so brazen as to state that it might be necessary to attack a country that is complicit in killing American soldiers and our allies. That appeared to be the response of many to Senator Lieberman raising the possibility of an attack on Iran Sunday on “Face the Nation.” “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Mr. Lieberman said. “That would include a strike…over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.” Mr. Lieberman, notably, introduced only the possibility of limited military action, saying “I want to make clear I’m not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran.” Mr. Lieberman’s comments met with immediate derision on “Face the Nation.” “We have a not insignificant small problem on our hands already called Iraq where we are kind of bogged down, and we have Afghanistan on our hands…We’re taking on a really big problem if we go striking Iran,” scoffed Colbert King of the Washington Post. “I can’t think of anything worse than announcing in advance your military strikes,” added Roger Simon of Politico.com.
It’s worth reading the whole thing, but Roger Simon makes an interesting comment there. Were the president to take military action against Iran, should he do so without warning? And even if that was determined to be the best course of action, does that preclude a healthy debate on the matter in the Congress and in the media? Surely not. If the Democratic leadership can inveigh against military action, and threaten legislation that would prevent such action without Congressional authorization, then certainly proponents of a hard-line approach ought to have the opportunity to make their case to the American people as well.
