The War Party

A classic in the Iran hawk literature in the form of a National Review editorial. It leads with the stunning hypocrisy of charging another country with interfering in Iraqi affairs:

When one country trains a force to infiltrate and destabilize its neighbor, it has committed an act of war. And by now, it is hardly a secret that Iran has been funding, arming, and training radical factions of the Mahdi army. Still, most American politicians have been reluctant to call Iran’s behavior exactly what it is: an act of war against Iraq, and against the United States.

Then come seven additional grafs of bloviating, followed by the necessarily vacuous conclusion: "Iran won’t stop so long as there is no price to its acts of war. The controversy over Lieberman’s remark shows how we aren’t prepared to make it pay one." What price should Iran be made to pay? Are the likely consequences of extracting said payment really that Iran will back down? Or will this launch a spiral of escalation? It's hard to say since National Review won't even say which policy they're advocating. But they want to widen the war, in some sense, to somehow include Iran, even though they have no particular measures in mind or sense of the overall strategy thereby served.

Thanks to J.T. for the pointer.