Among the academic set from which President Obama springs, everyone agrees that wars are the result of “arrogance” and bullying by the United States. So concerned was then-Sen. Obama about the potential for U.S. aggression that he declined to vote for 2007 legislation that would have designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.

The IRGC had been involved in training and arming terrorists worldwide, particularly in Lebanon (Hezbollah) but also in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. But Obama worried that such a vote would be “saber rattling.”