No one knows if President Obama intends to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, give Israel the go-ahead to do it, continue to rely on sanctions or turn to comprehensive negotiations to resolve the escalating conflict.

The decision to go to war is the most difficult one a president can make because it is impossible to foresee the outcome of a war. Even if it is Israel that attacks rather than the United States, the consequences for us are likely to be the same. That is because the entire world knows that the United States and Israel are linked by means of strategic cooperation agreements which prevent Israel from acting without, at least, tacit U.S. approval. If Israel is "in," so are we.

It is safe to assume that Obama wants to avoid war. Having just come out of the disastrous Iraq experience which cost 4,500 American lives and severely damaged our interests and credibility in the Middle East (and beyond), the president wants to keep his options open. If he can prevent war (i.e., Americans dying and other vital U.S. interests being attacked), he will.

But while the president needs his options open, the United States Congress, under intense pressure from pro-war lobbyists, is determined to shut down all but one of them.

That is the meaning of the legislation introduced this month by senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

The legislation:

rejects any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran; and urges the President to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear weapons-capability and oppose any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.

The legislation's intent was made clear by Lieberman: "All options must be on the table when it comes to Iran — except for one, and that is containment." He added that "the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran cannot be 'contained' like the threat of the Soviet Union" — or China, or North Korea, or Pakistan.

The senators are telling the president that if Iran develops a "nuclear weapons capability," we must go to war.

Imagine if President Kennedy had been told by the Congress back in 1962 that if the Soviet Union placed missiles in Cuba, he would have no choice but to attack the USSR. If it had, I wouldn't be here writing this column today and you wouldn't be reading it.

Presidents need latitude to make decisions affecting matters of national security and, until now, all presidents have been afforded it, as provided for in the United States Constitution. But, in the case of Iran, the rules are changing.

Here is more evidence.

On Sunday, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told interviewer Fareed Zakaria that he does not think the U.S. should rush to war. He was speaking after a visit to Israel and long consultations with its leaders.

Dempsey said that it was not "prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran" and that "a strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn't achieve [Israel's] long-term objectives." He also said that he did not believe that the Iranian regime was insane but was rather a "rational actor" not likely to commit national suicide.

Dempsey's remarks outraged Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose office put out a statement saying that Dempsey, and other U.S. officials who questioned the rationale for war, were "serving Iran's interests."

Had another foreign leader implied that the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a four star general, was some kind of Iranian agent, he would have been smacked down. But that is not how it works with Netanyahu.

It turns out that senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Graham were in Israel at the time Netanyahu attacked Dempsey. Rather than defend the American general as these uber-nationalists would do in any other similar situation, they joined the Israeli government in bashing the general — and decorated war hero. (The long-held custom of government officials not criticizing U.S. policies when in a foreign country has not applied to Israel for years.)

Check out this Jerusalem Post story on McCain's reaction which the paper correctly characterized as "siding with Jerusalem in the debate" over how to deal with Iran.

As for Graham, he said, "I admire General Dempsey," but added that "people are giving Israel a lot of advice here lately from America. I just want to tell our Israeli friends that my advice to you is never lose control of your destiny. Never allow a situation to develop that would destroy the Jewish state."

In other words, American advice to think long and hard about the consequences of war with Iran is tantamount to allowing "a situation to develop that would destroy the Jewish state."

The most appalling aspect of the senators' remarks is that their zeal to please Netanyahu and his backers in America has overridden their constitutional responsibility to put the security of the United States above all other considerations. An Israeli decision to attack Iran affects Americans, including their constituents in uniform and even ordinary Americans walking down the streets of New York, Washington, or Arizona and South Carolina.

As noble as their professed concern for Israel may be, America is supposed to come first for United States senators. McCain and Graham ought to be ashamed for standing in a foreign country and blatantly placing its government's interests before ours.

But, hey, it's politics and what could be more important than nailing down support for the next election?

Writing in today's Washington Post, columnist Fareed Zakaria does a terrific job destroying some arguments for war with Iran. He does it by, of all things, citing history.

First, Zakaria takes apart the argument, often made by Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, that the "window" to stop Iran from developing a nuclear capability is closing and that rushing to war — without, of course, knowing how a war would play out — is essential. Zakaria explains that this is one of the oldest justifications for war in the book:

The most famous example, of course, was Germany's decision to start what became World War I. The German General Staff believed that Russia — its archenemy — was rearming on a scale that would soon nullify Germany's superior military strength. The Germans believed that within two years — by 1916 — Russia would have a significant, and perhaps unbeatable, strategic advantage.

As a result, when turmoil began in the Balkans in June 1914, Germany decided to act while it had the advantage. To stop Russia from entering a "zone of immunity," Germany invaded France (Russia's main ally) and Belgium, which forced British entry into the war, thus setting in motion a two-front European war that lasted four years and resulted in more than 37 million casualties.

Zakaria then cites the Israeli argument that Americans cannot understand their fears because "Iran is an existential threat to them."

But in fact we can understand because we have gone through a very similar experience ourselves. After World War II, as the Soviet Union approached a nuclear capability, the United States was seized by a panic that lasted for years. Everything that Israel says about Iran now, we said about the Soviet Union. We saw it as a radical, revolutionary regime, opposed to every value we held dear, determined to overthrow the governments of the Western world in order to establish global communism. We saw Moscow as irrational, aggressive and utterly unconcerned with human life. After all, Joseph Stalin had just sacrificed a mind-boggling 26 million Soviet lives in his country's struggle against Nazi Germany.

Then there was the mad rush to war in Iraq:

Many in Washington in March 2003 insisted that we could not wait for nuclear inspectors to keep at their work in Iraq because we faced a closing window — the weather was going to get too hot by June and July to send in U.S. forces. As a result, we rushed into a badly planned military invasion and occupation in which soldiers had to endure combat in Iraq for nine long and very hot years.

In short, millions have been killed in wars that were based on faulty premises and lies. Happily, on the other hand, the ultimate war (a U.S.-Soviet war that might have ended civilization) did not come to pass because policymakers on both sides decided to contain the respective nuclear threat rather than blow up the enemy.

It is unlikely that Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Bob Casey (D-PA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) gave much thought to these historical precedents when they decided to introduce a resolution — promoted by AIPAC — that rules out "containing" the Iran nuclear threat in favor of going to war.

Their resolution is best described on Lieberman's website: "All options must be on the table when it comes to Iran — except for one, and that is containment."

The senators elaborate in a joint statement:

The resolution we intend to introduce will put the Senate on record as opposing containment in the strongest and clearest terms, detailing why the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran cannot be 'contained' like the threat of the Soviet Union.

Forget for a minute that there is no clear evidence that Iran has decided to build nuclear weapons, let alone even the slightest indication that Iran is prepared to commit national suicide by using any possible weapon it develops. Focus only on the fact that these senators are seeking to rule out containment in dealing with the eventuality that the Iranians succeed in developing a bomb.

They would prohibit the one policy the U.S. has successfully employed in the case of every other unfriendly regime that has developed nuclear weapons.

But for some reason, the Iranian case is different. In the senators' joint statement opposing containment, they specifically assert that "a nuclear-armed Iran cannot be 'contained' like the threat of the Soviet Union."

Their thinking is that unlike Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and North Korea's dynastic and reckless leaders, the Iranian regime is suicidal. Although use of an atomic weapon would lead to its own annihilation, the hawks claim Iran will happily commit suicide for the sheer pleasure of taking Israel down with it.

But no nation has ever committed suicide and Persians, whose pride in their own culture and sense of nationalism knows no bounds, are clearly among the least likely candidates for the course of self-immolation. (Assuming they hate Israel so much that they would happily self-destruct, there is also the matter of the Palestinians who would also die in any nuclear attack on Israel. It's difficult to believe that, in the name of Palestine, Iran would slaughter the Palestinians.)

No, the campaign that surrounds Iran is about Israel's fear that a nuclear Iran would inhibit Israel's freedom of action throughout the Middle East, taking away its ability to do whatever it wants whenever it wants to. Israel fears precisely what happened to the United States after the Soviets got the bomb — that both countries would be constrained by a fear of the other. A 'balance of terror,' as it was called during the half-century that the two nuclear superpowers avoided war.

There is no alternative to containment (not even regime change, considering that even opponents of the regime support Iran's nuclear program).

Even if Israel and/or the United States attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, the attack would only set back Iran's nuclear program by a few years. It would also probably end any debate in Iran about developing a nuclear deterrent; having been attacked, the regime would almost surely commit to building a bomb as soon as possible. And they would succeed.

Then what? Iran would have a bomb and we would have no choice but...containment.

So the only question is whether we adopt the policy of containment before a war or after. The answer should be obvious.

Of course, we might be able to avoid the question of containment if we commenced comprehensive negotiations with Iran with a goal of preventing development of a bomb (while permitting enrichment for civilian purposes), normalizing U.S.-Iranian relations, ending its support of terrorism against Israel or anyone else, and dropping the sanctions that punish ordinary Iranians and not the regime.

That is exactly what we would do if every policy could be made absent the powerful lobby that fears diplomacy more than war and is so effective at hamstringing U.S. policy with devices like the Lieberman-Casey-Graham resolution.

American Enterprise Institute fellow Michael Rubin has a habit of distorting the truth. In a post at neoconservative flagship Commentary, where he is a frequent contributor, Rubin goes out of his way to entirely misrepresent someone else's work in an effort to paint those who don't share his views as supporting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Rubin is upset with this post by UN Dispatch editor Mark Leon Goldberg, a rather cut-and-dry explanation of why a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Syria is unworkable. Rubin not only accuses Goldberg of "siding with Assad," he goes so far as to bring Ted Turner into the mix. Turner, the billionaire media mogul, gives money to the UN Foundation, which funds UN Dispatch.

Rubin writes:

Alas, it seems that neither the United Nations nor self-described progressives have learned anything since UN dawdling over such arguments led it to stand aside as nearly a million died in Rwanda massacres in the mid-1990s. But, so far as Ted Turner's money speaks, its message is "the UN will look the other way; let the massacres continue."

If you're one of those people that read through these pieces without clicking on the links, you might actually get the impression that Goldberg is arguing that we should let the massacres continue. But here's what is actually written in the piece in question:

As of now, the Assad regime has expressed no intention whatsoever of consenting to foreign troops operating on Syrian soil.  Ergo, there is no chance that the UN would even contemplate a peacekeeping mission.  If, at some future point the Assad regime agrees to a ceasefire and invites a peacekeeping force to monitor and help implement the ceasefire or peace agreement then we can start talking about a peacekeeping force. For now, though, the idea is basically a non-starter.

It's obvious that Goldberg isn't siding with Assad; he's explaining how the United Nations works and how the body dispatches peacekeeping missions. It's highly unlikely that Rubin doesn't understand this. In fact, Rubin has actually argued against the efficacy of U.N. peacekeepers before (something that Goldberg, it should be noted, does not do here). During the 2006 Lebanon War, Rubin wrote that "with its long and troubled history in the region, the idea of sending a peacekeeping force should be dead on arrival." What was then "dead on arrival" is now suddenly the only way to prevent continued bloodshed.

Goldberg left this comment on the Commentary site pointing out the problems with Rubin's post:

Explaining how UN peacekeeping operates helps inform a discussion about our actual policy options vis-a-vis Syria. That was my intention in writing the post. It is disingenuous to suggest that describing the limitations of UN Peacekeeping equates to "siding with Assad."

Commentary tends to treat its opinions as unchallengeable facts. Unfortunately, Goldberg's earnest attempt at explaining to Michael Rubin how a multilateral institution actually functions won't do anything to change that.

UPDATE: Ironically, Rubin is now upset at someone else for doing what he just did to Goldberg. In another post up at Commentary, Rubin complains that a writer at Real Clear World "falsely summarizes my argument."

In his column today, conservative Washington Post opinionator George Will's takes his side to task for the dishonest ways they have attacked the president's record on foreign policy. As Will explains, those who advance the notion that "America is being endangered by 'appeasement' and military parsimony have worked that pedal on their organ quite enough."

The deaf, dumb, and blind approach that the Republican presidential contenders have taken, in which they attack even the president's most popular and successful decisions, doesn't have much resonance with the electorate — especially given that the president has pursued a fairly conservative foreign policy while backing modest cuts to the massive military infrastructure. Will writes:

The U.S. defense budget is about 43 percent of the world's total military spending — more than the combined defense spending of the next 17 nations, many of which are U.S. allies. Are Republicans really going to warn voters that America will be imperiled if the defense budget is cut 8 percent from projections over the next decade? In 2017, defense spending would still be more than that of the next 10 countries combined.

Do Republicans think it is premature to withdraw as many as 7,000 troops from Europe two decades after the Soviet Union's death? About 73,000 will remain, most of them in prosperous, pacific, largely unarmed and utterly unthreatened Germany. Why do so many remain?

Since 2001, the United States has waged war in three nations, and some Republicans appear ready to bring the total to five, adding Iran and Syria. (The Weekly Standard, of neoconservative bent, regrets that Obama "is reluctant to intervene to oust Iran's closest ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.") GOP critics say that Obama's proposed defense cuts will limit America's ability to engage in troop-intensive nation-building. Most Americans probably say: Good.

Will, an early and enthusiastic  supporter of the war in Iraq, points out that what many Republicans are complaining about — namely that we are less inclined to invade and occupy other countries almost at will — is exactly what most Americans want. In particular, Will goes after former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who has advanced the "appeasement" canard even more than his more hawkish opponents. Romney's policy on Afghanistan, for example, seems to be the opposite of what the president is initiating; even if that means continuing a war that many (including some of Romney's own advisors) realize is unwinnable in the conventional sense.

But Will's comments about military spending are even more important. In the past several months, we've heard from Republicans that sequestration would result in all sorts of terrible outcomes, including a possible military draft, the abandonment of our allies, and even ceding our "global superpower status." The Heritage Foundation, one of the breeding grounds for conservative thought, is not only opposed to modest cuts to military spending but has consistently called for defense spending to be increased, much like Romney.

But these arguments, as Will notes, are made without consideration of just how massive our military budget is, how small an impact sequestration will ultimately have, and the fact that not only do we spend more than the next 17 countries combined, but that many of those behind us are our NATO allies and hence are of no threat.

These are strange times for those of us who follow the debate about a possible war with Iran. It is clear that the Israeli government and its neoconservative camp followers here in the United States are increasing pressure on President Obama to either attack Iran or let Israel do it (in which case we would be forced to join in). But the idea of another war in the Middle East is so outlandish that it seems inconceivable it could actually occur.

Still, the conventional wisdom holds that it can, because this is an election year and the assumption is that no one will say no to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

War enthusiasm will rise to a fever pitch by March, when AIPAC holds its annual policy conference. Netanyahu will, if the past is any indication, bring the crowd of 10,000 to its feet by depicting Iran as the new Nazi Germany and by coming very close to stating that only war can stop these new Nazis. Other speakers will say the same. The few who mention the idea of diplomacy will be met with stony silence.

From the convention center, 10,000 delegates will be dispatched to Capitol Hill with two or three "asks" for Members of Congress. One will, no doubt, be that "containment" of a nuclearized Iran be ruled off the table (leaving war as the only remaining option should Iran get the bomb). Another will likely be that the U.S. stop all dealings with the Palestinian Authority should Hamas and Fatah permanently reconcile. A third could apply either to Iran or Palestine and will inevitably demand fealty to whatever Netanyahu's policy of the moment happens to be. I've sat in on those meetings where the AIPAC "asks" are developed, and it was always clear that the substance didn't matter all that much.

The goal of the "asks" is ensuring that Congress follow the script. Invariably at least one of these AIPAC goals will be put into legislative language and quickly pass both chambers of Congress. In fact, usually the "ask" is already in legislative form, so that the AIPAC citizen lobbyists can simply demand that their legislators sign on as co-sponsors (if they haven't already done so). Once the AIPAC bill has the requisite number of co-sponsors, the House and Senate leadership brings it to the floor where it passes with few dissenters.

All hell breaks loose if a member of Congress objects.

One Member of Congress has actually described what happened when she voted no on an AIPAC "ask." Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) refused to support a bill (opposed by the State Department) that would have essentially banned all U.S. contacts with Palestinians. AIPAC was not pleased with her recalcitrance.

In a letter to AIPAC executive director, Howard Kohr, McCollum described what happened next. In short, she was threatened by an AIPAC official from her district, called a terrorist supporter and warned that her behavior "would not be tolerated." In response, McCollum told AIPAC not to come near her office again until it apologized.

McCollum was not, of course, the only legislator threatened that way. She is, however, the only one in memory who went public.

As one who worked on Capitol Hill for 20 years, I know that many, if not most, legislators who vote with AIPAC complain about its strong-arm tactics — but only in private. In fact, some of the most zealous defenders of Netanyahu and faithful devotees of the lobby complain most of all. Among staff, AIPAC's arrival in their offices during the conference is a source of dread. Hill staff, much like legislators themselves, like to think they are perhaps a little important. AIPAC eliminates that illusion. Although AIPAC calls its requests "asks," they are, in fact, "tells" — and "no" is not a permissible response. (Staffers who like AIPAC, and there are a few, tend to work with it hand-in-glove, which is how AIPAC invariably knows what is going on even before the elected representatives do.)

Despite all this, I do not think that either Netanyahu or his lobby are all that eager to go to war. After all, Israel's intelligence community opposes it for a host of reasons starting with the fact that it would not eliminate Iran's nuclear program. There is also the fear that Iran's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, on Israel's northern border, have tens of thousands of missiles that they can let fly if Iran is attacked. Above all is the understanding that no one knows if an attack would make Israel safer or threaten its very existence.

So here's a theory: Netanyahu and his camp followers here do not really want a war now. They just want it understood that they can dictate whether there is one or not. And when. In other words, they want to show who is boss (it's not like we don't know).

As for Obama, he may just be playing along with Netanyahu and AIPAC because he understands their strategy. Perhaps he knows that it isn't war they want but the illusion of control.

Only, it's not an illusion. And it certainly won't be if Netanyahu gets the president he wants in November — a Republican who will fight the war Netanyahu wants but isn't eager to fight himself. Surely Mitt or Rick or Newt will do it for him.

In his February 7^th column in the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens, the paper's deputy editorial page editor, advocates bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. Stephens does not believe that a strike would end the country's nuclear program, as some hawks suggest, instead conceding that "a strike on Iran that sets its nuclear ambitions back by several years is at the outer periphery of Israel's military capability." He also acknowledges that many terrible things will happen if Iran is preemptively attacked but explains that those consequences are more of a reason to go big and aim for regime change. He writes:

[I]f Israel is going to gamble so much on a strike, it should play for large stakes. The Islamic Republic means to destroy Israel. If Israel means to survive, it should commit itself similarly. Destroying Iran's nuclear sites will be a short-lived victory if it isn't matched to the broader goal of ending the regime.

This morning, Stephens appeared on Fox News' Happening Now to talk about his piece.

STEPHENS: Israel should bomb Iran if it's going to strike decisively. If it's going to have a surgical attack that will set the Iranians back by six months or one year, then the question becomes, "Well, what's the point of that?" But if it's going to use a strike as a first stage in a broader program of regime change — joined by the United States — then that's worthwhile.

Watch:

On Fox, Stephens went on to claim that "Iran, by the view of our own defense secretary, is within a year of having an effective nuclear capability," and added that the "window for Israel is closing."

But he wasn't being entirely honest. For starters, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have both said recently that they are unsure about whether Iran has even made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon. Stephens, who talks here about a nuclear capability, must understand that a capability is much different than having a usable device, much less a way to deliver it.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, a war with Iran would almost certainly convince the regime that it needs to turn its nuclear capability into an actual nuclear weapon to deter future attacks. In other words, the decision that hasn't yet been made by Iran's leadership will be made in the event of an attack. Stephens is advocating a policy that will make a nuclear-armed Iran a reality.

Stephens understands the holes in his argument, so instead he advocates for regime change. The only problem there is that the only way to achieve that from the outside is by invading the country and occupying it. Stephens doesn't use those exact words, but that's essentially the argument. It really is Iraq all over again.

The editors of The Post and Courier, one of largest newspapers in South Carolina, sound like they're getting information about foreign affairs from right-wing alarmist websites. In an irresponsible editorial yesterday, the newspaper scares its readers by inflating a recent trip that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made to Cuba into some looming national security crisis.

Given the support both nations have provided to international terrorists, the Iran-Cuba connection can only be viewed ominously. It would likely prolong the life of the appalling Cuban regime while giving Iran, which is preparing to field nuclear-tipped missiles within the next few years, a possible base of operations against the United States.

Cuba needs a new tenant that will, like the former Soviet Union, give it highly favorable terms of trade for its exports. In 1960 Fidel struck a deal with Moscow providing petroleum in exchange for sugar, and that deal, through ups and downs, kept Cuba's economy above water until 1990.

It also provided a base for Soviet military activities that almost led to nuclear war in the Cuban missile crisis, 50 years ago.

But the Cuban economy quickly went down when the Soviet Union collapsed, and not even Fidel's friendship with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, access to cheap Venezuelan oil and trading relations with most of the world have helped restore the old order.

The Castros may be willing to risk a new and more effective multinational embargo by trading with Iran, provided they get a good price.

Meanwhile, Iran is looking for trading partners, as it faces broader, tougher Western sanctions. More importantly, like the old Soviet Union, it is seeking points of pressure against the United States.

Mr. Ahmadinejad renewed his connections with other anti-American leaders in Latin America, including Mr. Chavez and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

While Iran's activities in Cuba are certainly a cause for concern, there is no reason for the level of alarm that is raised by The Post and Courier.

For starters, Iran and Cuba have had a good relationship for several decades, including during the Cold War. And Iran's not the only one. As the editors themselves acknowledge, Cuba has "trading relations with most of the world." In fact, Cuba even has limited trading relations with the United States, something many members of Congress would like to see expanded.

The editors are reading way too much into this visit. For instance, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff recently made a state visit to Cuba to discuss trade. How is Ahmadinejad's visit an indication Cuba wants to go towards authoritarian Iran but Rousseff's more important visit not a signal that Cuba is opening up?

In addition, no one seriously subscribes to the idea that Cuba supports international terrorists. As Jeffrey Goldberg recently wrote:

Here is some of what we know about Cuba. Cuba is an impoverished autocracy. Its superannuated leaders are gradually opening their country's economy. Cuba is reducing the size of its military, it has condemned al-Qaeda and it poses no national-security threat to the U.S. No serious intelligence analyst believes that Cuba is still funding or arming foreign insurgencies.

The Post and Courier editors also write that Iran is "preparing to field nuclear-tipped missiles within the next few years." There are many legitimate concerns about Iran's nuclear program and the intentions of its leaders, but there is no evidence that Iran will "field nuclear-tipped missiles" in the near future. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have both said in recent weeks that Iran has not yet made the decision to develop nuclear weapons. Either the editors of The Post and Courier know more about Iran's intentions than the U.S. intelligence community or they're shooting from the hip with no concern for accuracy.

It's important for local papers to cover international issues, but in an editorial that deals with war and peace, the least they should do is to consider the facts.

In his pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday night, President Obama went farther than ever before to assert that U.S. and Israeli interests are identical. Obama even one-upped Vice President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly said that there must be "no daylight — no daylight" between our policies and theirs.

Obama's statement was more disturbing because he was not speaking in the abstract but about the possibility of war with Iran. The president said, "My number one priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel."

I'll repeat that: "My number one priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel."

That is a remarkable statement, so much so that I'll leave it to someone with more impressive credentials than my own to challenge it. Paul R. Pillar is a 28-year veteran of the CIA who, before his retirement, became chief of analysis at the agency's DCI Counterterrorist Center. He now teaches at Georgetown and writes for The National Interest. He also served in Vietnam between 1971 and 1973.

Here is his reaction to the president's statement:

Wait a minute-shouldn't the security of the United States be the number one priority of the president of the United States? Rather than merely sharing the top spot on the priority list with some foreign country's security?

He continues:

Any national political leader in the United States should be expected to give clear, consistent, overwhelming priority to U.S. interests-never equating, much less subordinating, them to the interests of any foreign state. Relationships with foreign governments can be useful in advancing U.S. interests, but they are always means, not ends. ... Suffice it to note that the policies of the current government of the foreign state in question are not only not to be equated with U.S. interests but are seriously damaging those interests, whether through risking war with Iran, undermining efforts short of war to resolve differences with Iran, or associating the United States with a highly salient and unjust occupation. Even with an alternative government that was less destructive (to Israel's own interests, let alone to those of the United States), the interests of the United States should not be equated with the interests of this foreign state any more than to those of Denmark, Thailand, Argentina or any other foreign country, no matter what fondness individual citizens may feel toward those or other places.

Pillar goes on to mention the statements of the various Republican candidates (except Ron Paul) whose pledges to Israel are even more self-abnegating from an American point of view. He reserves special scorn for Newt Gingrich's top donor, Sheldon Adelson, (expected to soon move over to the Romney campaign) who has said that he regrets serving in the U.S. military over Israel's. Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum have all made clear that, to them, Israel is not a foreign country but an adjunct of the United States (somewhere near Florida, perhaps). 

The good news — if there is any — about these statements from the president and his opponents is that it is unlikely any of them are sincere.

I certainly do not believe that Obama, in any way, puts Israel's interests on par with those of the United States. Not even close. Frankly, I don't think the Republicans do either.

The ugly part is that these candidates believe that making such statements is necessary to please donors (and perhaps some voters).

Where would they get that idea?

Well, they get it from the various organizations (led by AIPAC) that constitute Binyamin Netanyahu's lobby in America, as well as from members of the House and Senate who are Bibi's cutouts. (Check out AIPAC's website.)

That is why Obama caved on the issue of Israeli settlements (going so far as to veto a United Nation resolution condemning the, even though it was completely in sync with long-standing U.S. policy). That is why we pulled out all the stops to prevent the United Nations from recognizing a Palestinian state. That is why Obama insists that war with Iran remains "on the table" while unconditional negotiations with the Iranian regime have apparently never been contemplated. And that is why it is quite possible that the United States could find itself at war with Iran either directly or because we join Israel in a combined military assault.

Pillar points out that in the same interview Obama said the U.S. is "going to make sure we work in lockstep" with Israel on Iran. As Pillar notes:

If working in lockstep means that Israel defers to U.S. interests and preferences, that would be fine for the United States. But of course the deference nearly always works the other way around.

After all, it is America that is the superpower while Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the world.

It should be said that the Israeli people (most of whom oppose war with Iran) do not benefit from the supine position in which our politicians approach their government. As for the two Iran hawks running Israel's foreign policy, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, they can hardly be blamed if they view these statements as evidence that the United States will not oppose anything they do. Congress, of course, will do what AIPAC tells it to do.

In short, Israel is freer to get us and itself into a war with Iran that will cost God knows how many lives and shock the world economy into a deeper recession than the one we are in. Knowing Netanyahu and Barak, it will be hard for them to resist this temptation.

On March 4, some 10,000 AIPAC delegates from around the country with gather in Washington for the group's annual policy conference. The president and some 350-400 members of Congress will be in attendance. (Candidates from both parties will raise huge sums of money in special side rooms deemed independent of AIPAC so that the organization can continue to claim that it does not fund candidates.)

And the message the politicians will hear is that AIPAC is ready for war. If the past is prologue, every reference to diplomacy by speakers from the president on down will be met by silence. Every reference to war will be met with thunderous applause.

The government officials and candidates will go home happy to have pleased some key donors. The Israeli government officials will go home believing that America will back absolutely anything they choose to do. As for the American people, they will barely know that any of this is happening.

Harvard University historian Niall Ferguson is out with a new piece in The Daily Beast arguing for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "There are plenty of arguments against an Israeli attack on Iran," the subhead of the article explains. But "all of them are bad." Ferguson writes:

There are five reasons (I am told) why Israel should not attack Iran:

1. The Iranians would retaliate with great fury, closing the Strait of Hormuz and unleashing the dogs of terror in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq.

2. The entire region would be set ablaze by irate Muslims; the Arab Spring would turn into a frigid Islamist winter.

3. The world economy would be dealt a death blow in the form of higher oil prices.

4. The Iranian regime would be strengthened, having been attacked by the Zionists its propaganda so regularly vilifies.

5. A nuclear-armed Iran is nothing to worry about. States actually become more risk-averse once they acquire nuclear weapons.

I am here to tell you that these arguments are wrong.

What comes next is not what you would expect; Ferguson does not explain why these concerns (which are straw man arguments he's summarized in ridiculous ways) are wrong, as you'd expect, but jokes away the worries without even mentioning the real dangers of war. Like Matthew Kroenig's much-discussed article in Foreign Affairs, which tried to make the case for a U.S. strike, Ferguson mentions potential consequences of war but makes no serious effort to address the five points he's outlined. Both writers suffer from the same flaw: downplaying failure while being overly optimistic about success.

Any doubt that Ferguson takes war with Iran lightly is eliminated by his depiction of an imaginary conservation between President Obama and David Axelrod in which the president orders his people to provide support for an Israeli attack on Iran — "line up those bunker busters" — but only after hearing that he isn't polling well in Florida.

Frivolity aside, the piece is most noteworthy not for what is mentioned but for what Ferguson avoided writing about: An aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will not stop the country's nuclear program, and almost certainly will convince decision-makers there that they need to weaponize to protect against future attacks. As Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has made clear, an attack would at most delay Iran's program by a few years. That fact alone should be enough to put much of this dangerous speculation to rest.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney likes to talk a good game on foreign policy. He says that when he's president, America will once again be the greatest country in world, implying that we've fallen behind because of the policies of the Obama administration. After winning the Florida primary earlier in the week, he again repeated the "Pants on Fire" claim that "President Obama has adopted a policy of appeasement and apology."

Beyond the necessity of appeasing the base by attacking the incumbent president, Romney hasn't shown any meaningful knowledge of world affairs, much less demonstrated that he understands that the world around him is changing in dramatic ways and that as president, he'd have much less power to dictate how the world should be run.

In a piece in the Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria highlights some of things candidate Romney should learn (or come to accept) in the weeks and months ahead if he actually wants to be taken seriously on foreign policy.

Twenty years ago Turkey was a fragile democracy, dominated by its army, that had a weak economy constantly in need of Western bailouts. Today, Turkey has a trillion-dollar economy that grew 6.6 percent last year. Since April 2009, Turkey has created 3.4 million jobs - more than the European Union, Russia and South Africa put together. That might explain Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's confidence and his country's energetic foreign policy.

Look in this hemisphere: In 1990, Brazil was emerging from decades of dictatorship and was wracked by inflation rates that reached 3,000 percent. Its president was impeached in 1992. Today, the country is a stable democracy, steadily growing with foreign-exchange reserves of $350 billion. Its foreign policy has become extremely active. President Dilma Rousseff is in Cuba this week, "marking Brazil's highest-profile bid to transform its growing economic might into diplomatic leadership in Latin America," the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Brazil's state development bank is financing a $680 million rehabilitation of Cuba's port at Mariel.

For three decades, India was unable to get any Western country to accept its status as a nuclear power. But as its economy boomed and Asia became the new cockpit of global affairs, the mood shifted. Over the past five years the United States, France, Britain and others have made a massive exception for New Delhi's nuclear program and have assiduously courted India as a new ally. I could go on.

These three emerging powers are seeking a greater role in the international system. Turkey and Brazil, in particular, are charting independent foreign policies that might be in the best interest of their respective nations, but not always in line with Washington's objectives. India, too, which has strengthened military ties with the U.S., is sometimes unwilling to go along with U.S. policy. The country recently announced, for example, that it would continue to buy oil from Iran.

So far on the campaign trail, Romney has had little to say about Turkey, Brazil, or India. When Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) foolishly said during a debate that Turkey was governed by "Islamic terrorists," Romney remained silent. He should have come to the defense of an important NATO ally, one that accepted a missile defense system on its soil and has sought to play a constructive role in the Arab Spring.

Romney doesn't display the sort of nuanced understanding of foreign affairs that is critical to determining effective policy in the 21^st century. In his worldview, you always agree with and work with your allies and constantly seek to isolate and undermine your foe and adversaries. But allies, especially critical allies, don't always behave the way you want them to. And sometimes, you need to work with foes and adversaries to achieve your larger goals. For instance, Romney, a vocal critic of the New START Treaty, might not comprehend that the administration's so-called reset with Russia is critical to isolating Iran. Romney has promised to "reset President Obama's 'Reset' with Russia," meaning a reversal to the Bush administration's failed efforts at ignoring Russia and hoping that its power would magically go away.

Romney just can't be taken seriously on foreign policy until he acknowledges that Latin America is more than Chavez and Castro, that the Middle East is more than Israel and Iran, and that as much as he might worry about Russia and the rise of China, the two Security Council countries are critical to doing anything meaningful on the world stage. On his campaign site, he pledges to "deny Russia any control or veto over the system." Come on; that's ridiculous.

Mitt Romney will tell his base what they want to hear. But it's clear that the Republican frontrunner is nowhere close to understanding how challenging it is to make policy in an ever-evolving world arena. Hackneyed rhetoric might sell on the campaign trail, but it certainly won't at the United Nations or Geneva.