Third Man In

In hockey it’s called the third-man-in rule — the third man in to any fight gets thrown out of the game. I was never a fan of that rule. If your teammate needs help in a fight — even if he started it — you’re pretty much expected to join in. So it’s not surprising that Rasmussen found:

Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans say that if Israel launches an attack against Iran, the United States should help Israel. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% believe the United States should do nothing while just 2% believe the U.S. should help Iran.

I suspect that the other 37 percent is split between those who don’t think Israel is a friend and ally of the United States (isolationists and anti-Semites) and those who believe that war is never the answer (pacifists and Communists). Also noteworthy:

Sixty-six percent (66%) of all voters now say that preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons is more important than preventing war between Iran and Israel. That’s up fourteen percentage points from 52% last July.

That cuts pretty hard against elite opinion, which assumes that the Iranians will get a bomb no matter what so the real threat to peace in the region is some misguided effort to prevent the inevitable. But after the last eight years, the American people still seem to support the principle of preemptive war to prevent rogue nations from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

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