Yes it was an over the top shot back to make a point. There is always some bad guy for them to get us riled about. The tail is wagging the dog.
Not quite right. Ron Paul has said we do not have the constitutional authority to stop Iran from acquiring a nuke. That's not the same as trusting them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDvaTqLlZlA&sns=em
No "tails are wagging" any dogs.
Should we have gotten riled up about Tojo and Hitler before Dec. 7, 1941?
Probably, but we managed to do a pretty good job of avoiding war until ther war found us.
We did a good job of treating Islamic terrorists as a law enforcement problem until Sept. 11, 2001.
And there are plenty of nutcakes in charge of some odd govt. who do kooky things and say or do nasty things about America, like, for example, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
Before we look for "Constitutional authority" to stop Iran from getting any kind of a weapon, from a squirtgun to a nuke, we have to have the cajones to actually go through with some plan to stop Iran's nuclear program ---and I don't think we do.
The world is full of bad guys and always has been. There's no need to create phony bogeymen when there are real ones out there.
The big question is which ones are truly dangerous to us or to countries of strategic importance to us, or to allied countries. Right now Ahmadinejab qualifies if only because of his antisemitic rantings and nuclear ambitions, as well as his belief in a final apocolypse.
We don't have to look for bogeymen for the politicians to use to get us "riled up," the world is full of them, and they're only "bogeymen" while they're pestering some other people. When they send 19 terrorists to kill 2973 human beings inside our borders they become a national security threat. Bin Laden was a great "bogeyman" before that; right out of central casting.
I am not trying to say we need to TKO Ahmadinejab or do anything so far as Iran is concerned. I've already said I don't think we have the stones to do it. But I am saying that if there is going to be another blow-up in this world .... another Pearl Harbor, another North Korea invading South Korea, another invasion of Poland....I think it's a good bet Iran will be at the center of it.
