The consequences will never be the same

In light of the President of Iran's intimation that Obama might launch an attack on Iran in weeks or months, I just thought to bring back something of interest:

January 22, 2005 - By now you have probably heard about the Bush Administration's secret plan to attack Iran and how US Special Forces units have been operating in the country for some time. Seymour Hersh, the maverick journalist for The New Yorker, broke the story earlier this week.

Even before 2005 liberals and anti-war activists had been spouting about "the Bush Administration's secret plan to attack Iran," a plan so secret that apparently the Bush Administration never learned of its existence even in the four years following it revelation by a "maverick journalist*." At least they never actually made such an attack as far as I can tell.  It wasn't in the papers, anyway.

But buried deep within the bowels of this piece** was something that made me laugh pretty hard:

Recently, the Democratic Party's rising "progressive" star Barack Obama said he would favor "surgical" missile strikes against Iran.... Obama went on to argue that military strikes on Pakistan should not be ruled out if "violent Islamic extremists" were to "take over."

Given that the rising progressive star(™) is currently dropping bombs on Pakistan, one can see how the President of Iran might expect that he is in the crosshairs as well.

However, a number of people are making the same kinds of political miscalculations as did the Bush accusers, especially if they expect that such an attack would result in a 'rally around the flag vote' just in time for November.  An American public tired of their sons dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in light of the progressives' previous railings against those wars, are certainly not going to rally around*** dropping a few bombs out of planes, much less support an invasion based on vague Executive Branch warnings about WMDs. Been there, right?

Rather I suspect that, should such an attack be made, the reaction of the American public would be exactly the opposite.  Most ordinary people trust their president whether they like him or not, but such a transparently political "attack" would be viewed even more cynically than Clinton's bombing of an aspirin factory as Linda Tripp ascended the courthouse steps to testify to the Lewinsky grand jury - I don't remember the American people clamoring for war with Sudan after that.

* Not to be confused with John McCain.
** ironically titled, "Democrats and Iran: Look Who Supports Bush's Next War."
*** by which is meant, "vote for Pelosi and Democratic Congressmen," which is where that argument leads.