Little Ricky The Rooster Santorum Favors War With... Iran... Or Eastasia Or Oceania Or Holland... Whomever

I wasn't planning to make this a Little Ricky the Rooster day but Santorum inserted himself so forcefully all over the news yesterday, while Obama was at church thanking God for smiling on him and Romney was hiding under a bed wishing the whole thing was over and Rove, the Mormon Church and the Koch Brothers would just bring him his tiara, scepter and orb already and skip over all this pesky, vulgar voting, campaigning and caucusing nonsense.

As we mentioned earlier this morning, Rooster was on full tilt boogie with George Stepanopoulos yesterday advancing his ideas for a theocracy, forgetting he was talking to a national audience instead of to a convocation of the leaders of Opus Dei. But that isn't all he was running his mouth about. He also kept insisting that Obama, the president who finally killed Osama bin-Laden, ended Bush's unjustifiable war against Iraq and removed Muammar Qadaffi, is... weak. And campaigning in Marquette he kept calling the Afghan protestors "evil" for demonstrating against the burning of the Koran and the presence of what has turned out to be murderous NATO troops in their country for a decade. He claimed there that by Obama apologizing for the burning of the Korans, it showed weakness and encouraged more violence. I suppose it never occured to little Rooster, who worked hard to avoid military service himself, that the presence of American troops in their country for a ten years-- "accidentally" killing hundreds and innocent civilians (what do they call it? ...collatoral damage!)-- might be enough to set off the anger of the Afghan people.

I spent nearly a year living and traveling in Afghanistan right after I graduated from college. These are proud, defiant, independent people-- your best friend or your worst enemy; you can decide which by your actions towards them. How would Americans react if a Muslim Army occupied our country for a decade, killed untold numbers of civilians "by accident," and burned our sacred symbols (and urinated on the bodies of people fighting for the country's liberty)? Would Rooster join the Freedom Fighters? There's no reason from his past actions to think he would do anything but collaborate with the occupiers. But now he-- and the rest of the hyenas running for the GOP nomination (i.e., all of them but Ron Paul)-- want to push this country into a war with Iran. David Sarasohn captured the dangers inherent in this agitation by the GOP candidates towards war in yesterday's Oregonian.

Wars are most popular before they happen.

At that point, they carry no casualties, no complications, no collateral damage. Wars prewar are all about clear, positive, easily achievable objectives, to be gained with minimal effort. We like to use the word "surgical"-- although surgery rarely puts more than one life at risk.

Before the first shot had been fired in Iraq, the Bush administration canned its budget director for telling Congress the war might cost more than $50 billion, maybe as much as $100 billion or $200 billion.

That was, of course, almost a decade and something over a trillion dollars ago.

Iran is now in the easy, alluring phase, the part when an air attack to knock out its nuclear bomb effort seems just a matter of reaching out and fixing a problem. This could be why last Wednesday, in the Republican presidential debate in Arizona, it seemed that three of the hopefuls couldn't wait to get started.

Technically, it's true that the United States is still trying desperately to extricate itself from two other wars in the neighborhood. But somehow, for Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, Iraq and Afghanistan didn't come up at all in the discussion of what they wanted to do-- not when we're in the stirring, no-cost phase of an attack on Iran.

Wednesday, it seemed the three candidates could barely wait to attack Iran, or at least encourage Israel to launch its bombers eastward.

"I do believe there are moments when you pre-empt," said Gingrich, eagerly. "If you think a madman is about to have nuclear weapons and you think that madman is going to use those nuclear weapons, then you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity to get nuclear weapons."

Romney complained that Obama "opposes military action. This is a president who should have instead communicated to Iran that we are prepared, that we are considering military options. They're not just on the table. They are in our hand." He later demanded "a very clear statement that military action is an action that will be taken if they pursue nuclear weaponry."

Both sounded dovish next to Santorum, who declared, "I have been on the trail of Iran and trying to advocate for stopping them getting a nuclear weapon for about eight years now... Up against a dangerous theocratic regime that wants to wipe out the state of Israel, that wants to dominate the radical Islamic world and take on the great Satan, the United States, we do nothing. That is a president that must go. And you want a leader who will take them on? I'll do that."

In just four minutes, the conversation featured more enthusiastic muscle-flexing than an entire Mr. Universe competition.

No candidate noted the strategic difficulties of taking out dozens of Iranian sites, many deeply bunkered, and that at best Iran might be set back a year or two. Nobody mentioned that a foreign attack would massively increase the regime's support in Iran, the likelihood of a sizable retaliation against Israel and American sites around the world, or the immediate impact on the world economy.

As we've learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, you don't think about those things in the early, exciting part of the war. Those discoveries come later, when it's too late.

...All of those parts-- the U.S. casualties, the unforeseen consequences, the backlash in the countries we attack, the discovery that it's a lot simpler to go in surgically than to get out surgically-- are realities we come to see much later.

That's when a war gets less popular.

Although there is pretty solid support in Congress for war, few are more committed to it than House Armed Services Committee chair Buck McKeon (R-CA), who gets massive legalistic bribes from the Military Industrial Complex in return for pushing forward their agenda in Congress. For the first time ever, McKeon is in danger this year of being defeated. Redistricting wasn't kind to him and he has his first serious opponent in Blue America-endorsed progressive, Lee Rogers. I asked Lee how he differs from McKeon on the issue of aggressive wars. Short answer: A LOT. Here was his response in full:

McKeon's position is clear; as the largest recipient of campaign contributions from the defense industry, he needs more conflicts to keep the military-industrial complex busy. With the Iraq War over and the War in Afghanistan coming to a close, weapons manufacturers will have to scale back productions. McKeon has already broken ranks with Republicans and Grover Norquist saying he would raise taxes to fund his defense contractor friends.

No one wants a nuclear-armed Iran. But we haven't yet given diplomacy and sanctions a chance. The sanctions are having an effect. Iran is becoming desperate, threatening to cut off oil to some European nations and blockade the Straight of Hormuz.

Some Republican hard-liners want to preemptively go to war. That is an awful decision that is based on the economics of oil and the defense industry, more so than an actual threat to the United States. It will cost countless American lives and overwhelm our Veterans system with more physical and emotional injuries.

McKeon has said that the sequestered defense cuts might lead to the US to reinstate the draft. Implementing a draft to go to war with Iran would tear this country apart. His statements show he doesn't care about the troops, only how much more money he can have the US spend on products of war and benefit his rich friends.

Two U.S. officers were shot in the back of the head in one of the most secure buildings in Afghanistan and several other Americans were killed since the Koran burning sparked a the resentment that almost every patriotic Afghan feels about the NATO occupation of their country. The Republicans are trying to drum up war fever for all the regular reasons-- from the purely financial motives of a low-life bottom-feeder like McKeon to the GOP primary candidates' desire to show how much tougher they are than anyone else. (Ironically, the only Republican who served in the military-- in fact, the only one who didn't actively work to avoid serving-- Ron Paul, adamantly opposes the GOP drive towards war.)

The race to the bottom has been set by Newt Gingrich, the most desperate of the lot, who on Tuesday charged that "the president wants to unilaterally weaken the United States" because his administration has dared question the wisdom of Israel attacking Iran and proposes a slight reduction in the bloated defense budget.

...If Bush had taken out bin Laden, the Republicans would have by now had W's head chiseled into Mount Rushmore, but since it is Obama's success, they are driven mad by this turn of events. On Tuesday, Gingrich came totally unglued, telling a student audience at Oral Roberts University that defeating Obama is "a duty of national security" because the president "is incapable of defending the United States."

Why? Simple. Obama has accepted the eminently sensible proposal endorsed by the Pentagon brass to trim $32 billion from the $655 billion defense budget in 2013. That small cut from a Cold War-style budget that accounts for 45 percent of world spending on the military despite there being no sophisticated military enemy now in sight for the U.S. was judged by Gingrich to render the president "willfully dishonest."

The idea of Newt Gingrich calling anyone else dishonest is an affront to reason, but, with the exception of Rep. Paul, those vying with the former House speaker for the nomination have been quick to indicate they are in full accord with the accusation. Gingrich's rabid support for the U.S. lining up behind an Israeli attack, even a nuclear one, may be explained by his campaign being kept afloat by a Nevada gambling billionaire who contributed $10 million to a pro-Gingrich super PAC and whose prime cause is the Israeli far-right. Rick Santorum offers biblical bromides for his support of Israeli militarism, and for Mitt Romney, the thirst for war just seems a natural extension of his innate say-anything opportunism. What a disreputable crew.

As Andrew Bast pointed out in the Daily Beast, President Obama, is unlikely to pay them any heed.

Obama and Netanyahu may be marching in the same parade, but they are not in lockstep. Netanyahu has repeatedly made his country’s interests clear. When he addressed the U.S. Congress last May he said, “Time is running out, the hinge of history may soon turn, for the greatest danger of all could soon be upon us: a militant Islamic regime armed with nuclear weapons.” He went on, “I ask you to continue to send an unequivocal message that America will never permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons.” In recent weeks, his defense minister Ehud Barak and the Israeli President Shimon Peres have furthered that request.

But Obama cannot send any such unequivocal message to Iran. He will not be able to support-- either overtly or covertly-- Israeli military strikes. Assuming Netanyahu doesn’t come around to Obama’s position that military action is avoidable, the two will part ways with the strategic gap widening between them. “Over the past year, perhaps even over the last four years, the evidence has been growing that U.S. and Israeli interests are not identical,” says Stephen Walt, a political scientist at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “And if you’re in the Obama administration, you do not want a war right now.”

Indeed, even the most well-conceived and precisely executed military campaign would have unintended consequences. For example, should Israeli fighter jets attack Iranian nuclear sites, even in the best-case scenario the ensuing struggle in the Gulf would result in several weeks of higher prices at the pump. Obama is already fighting a political battle for reelection with gasoline prices at all-time highs—he is not likely to gamble on upping those by a dollar or two more this summer.

There are strategic risks, too, associated with a strike that have not been accounted for. As former Israeli official Ehud Eiran wrote on Friday, “Israeli policymakers are ignoring several of the potential longer-term aspects of a strike: the preparedness of Israel’s home front; the contours of an Israeli exit strategy; the impact on U.S.-Israel relations; the global diplomatic fallout; the stability of world energy markets; and the outcome within Iran itself.” With too much left to chance, and the fact that military action would likely only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few years, the possible costs outweigh the potential benefit.

Anyone who tells you where the American public stands on striking Iran is blowing hot air. Polls this month from CNN and The Hill reached exactly opposite conclusions. Obama has built much of his foreign policy record on ending wars in the Middle East. To unleash a new one just months before a national election would, despite the hawkish harangues from his Republican opponents, stink all the way to the ballot boxes on the 6th of November.

The uncertainty that accompanies military action is all the more unpalatable to the Obama administration right now because, for the moment at least, things are beginning to look up for the White House. The economy, although still sputtering, is at least starting to make strides toward a sustainable recovery. Republicans are spending the vast majority of their time tarring and feathering each other. Accordingly, White House spokesman Jay Carney said explicitly last week, “There is time and space to attempt to resolve [the Iran conflict] peacefully.”

But this is where Obama’s real conundrum begins, not ends. To be sure, sanctions have taken their toll on Iran. They are chipping away at the country’s economy and wearing down the everyday lives of the Iranian people but “so far they are not blaming the regime,” says Hooman Majd, the respected author who spent most of last year living in Tehran. “Actually, they seem to be blaming the West. The sanctions are, in a way, providing the leadership cover for their own economic mismanagement.” So there is an argument that even as the White House’s top tactic is hitting its target, it is delivering counterproductive results.