Crawl to War

This Gail Collins column is a mixed bad, and readers will know that I disagree with her about Social Security, but I think she nails this point:

“Well, first of all, I am against a rush to war,” she said. That would have been disturbing even if she had not attacked the idea of “rushing to war” twice more in the next 60 seconds. Being against a rush to another war in the Middle East seems to be setting the bar a tad low. How does she feel about a measured march to war? A leisurely stroll?

Right. The Bush administration itself doesn't appear to be pursuing a "rush to war" with Iran. Given the very long period of time — over a year — during which the saber-rattling has played out, there's really no question of a "rush" at this point. But the strategy still embeds a logic of confrontation and, yes, war. The key point here in many ways is less the Kyl-Lieberman vote as such than the way Kyl-Lieberman fits into a broader package — hawkish on Iraq, attacked Obama from the right on Iran, seemed to rule out normalization of relations with Iran even in exchange for verifiable disarmament in a Foreign Affairs article — of hawkish Iran-related measures even in the midst of a primary campaign.