This is no Way to Organize Chaos.

A mainstream voice of sanity on Iran:

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler ... a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

If only Democrats had the nerve to talk about Iran like this. What are they afraid of? Looking weak on defense before conservatives who already think they're weak on defense? People respect intelligence (if not intellectuals) and I think pointing out that this ridiculous rhetoric about Iran is irresponsible and loony and proposing in its stead a smart foreign policy--by name--would effectively turn around public opinion (or, more likely, inform it). If Rudy Giuliani's ace in the hole with conservatives is that he'll bomb Iran the second after he's sworn into office and the rest of the American public knows that, I think they'll be less inclined to vote for him.

Or at least I sincerely hope so. Obviously the public has completely bailed on the Iraq war, so I don't think it's a stretch to say that the public would be, at least at this point, against starting more wars. That being said, we already have irresponsible loons in and advising the White House, not the least of which a vice president who has not only made clear his desire to bomb Iran but has demonstrated the ability to get his way in foreign policy debates. If we can make it to 2009 without George Bush giving the OK to bomb, I would be the first to acknowledge that he actually used good judgment for once in his role as president although the greater thanks should really go to the State department who, in all likelihood, would be the ones who convinced him that Iran was not the Greatest Threat in the History of World.