Iran and the Phantom Menace

Perhaps I've oversensitive about talk of going to war with Iran. After all, I remember all the talk about Iraq and nuclear/chemical/biological weapons from a government that knew damn well Iraq didn't have them or the facilities to make them. Everyone who doesn't have the excuse of being a Republican or having been trapped in a cave for most of this century remembers the war that broke the bank and destroyed Iraq to make it "free."

Perhaps I'm oversensitive but when I read Dennis Ross, who served two years on Obama’s National Security Council and a year as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s special adviser on Iran telling us that the President is "ready to strike" if Iran begins the nuclear beguine, I have no problem remembering that Leon Panetta, who should know a bit about the subject, told us all yesterday that Iran is not working on developing a bomb. Is Ross just shooting his mouth off or is he just tough talking for the benefit of the President and his campaign? And why is Panetta telling us there is no threat requiring such bellicose bravado or is it just a "slip" like Dick Cheney's slip when he mentioned that al Qaeda had nothing to do with 9/11?

the United States, being what it is, doesn't seem to have tired of tough talk, or at least our candidates don't think so. To me, it's a sign of weakness and perhaps a bit of arrested development and although we have a ways to go in the down direction to get back to the point of having a "War President" parading around in combat gear and calling himself the "Commander Guy" any step in that direction worries me.