So it begins...

In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, many of of us who opposed the war began to wonder how long it would take the Bush administration to find another target for their doctrine of "pre-emptive" war.  Sure enough some of the hawks, swelled with confidence from the largely successful invasion, began saber rattling in the direction of Syria, making accusations that Syria was hiding Saddam's WMDs, assisting leftover Fedeyeen in resisting us, funding terrorists groups throughout the Middle East, and before he was found, of even hiding Saddam himself. Then, amidst the nearly absolute failure of the Administration to prepare for the aftermath of war, the resistence to the occupation began in earnest and all talk of any more invasions withered on the vine as our soldiers found themselves bogged down battling a tenacious insurgency which continues to this day. I for one figured that the hawks had finally realized they'd bitten off more than they could chew, and would realize that they're focus needed to remain on restoring security to Iraq. More war was almost certainly out of the question.

Until now that is.

It seems that I've overestimated the hawks and their commitment to Iraq. I'd always assumed that despite their incredible naivete in how to go about it, they were actually serious about turning Iraq into a shining example of democracy in the Middle East. Articles like Krauthammer's make it clear that, at least for some of the hawks, that's not the case. Krauthammer sincerely believes that the threat of nuclear weapons on Iraq is great enough such that we should currently take all of our soldiers battling to secure Iraq and send them flying across the border and into Tehran, to replace the Islamic regime currently in power. Who exactly will be left behind to guard Iraq is not addressed in his column. But it didn't take me long to realize that's not the point. What's left out is that the the reason Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons so feverishly is because of the failure of this administration to deal with the threat sooner, and the lesson they've learned from North Korea that nuclear weapons will actually deter attack from us, not invite it. What we have here is another cynical attempt to distract the American people from a real problem, Iraq, to focus on another problem of seemingly greater urgency, Iran and nuclear weapons. It's an awful lot like what they did the first time around; distracting us from the real threat of Al Queda by pushing the case for war in Iraq. Some hawks seem to think you can play this prank on the American people twice. I for one don't agree, but be on the lookout for more articles like this to appear, as the hawks try desperately to divert the attention from Iraq as they make their case for war in Iran.

As for me, I'll talk more later about what we actually should be doing about Iran.

UPDATE: Krauthammer may be on the earliest advocates of war with Iran, but he's not alone. The first step in making this US policy is for the pundits and commentators to throw the idea out there on their blogs, op-eds and websites.  Some examples:

New York Daily News(via FrontpageMagazine.com)

The Washington Times(predictably trumpeting the threat of Iran)