Iran — So Far Away
Glenn Greenwald, an amazing blogger everyone should read, has a post today about Iran, and whether or not the President has the right to invade without authorization from Congress. In the post, he describes an epilogue he had written in his book:
The Epilogue emphasizes that the radical theories of presidential power adopted by the administration (and applied to general lawbreaking, warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detentions of U.S. citizens) applied clearly and fully to Iran, i.e., that those theories — which were and still are the formally adopted positions of the Executive Branch — absolutely mean that the President has the power to commence a war with Iran, and that not only would he not need Congressional approval to do so, but Congress would lack the power to stop him even if it tried
And therein lies the point. I honestly don’t think we’re about to go to war with Iran. The military is stretched out too thin as it is. And so I wouldn’t read too much into Tony Snow and Condoleeza Rice refusing to answer whether the president needs the authority of Congress to invade Iran. It doesn’t in any way mean we’re about to do it. I wouldn’t expect either of them to say that their boss needs the authority of Congress to do anything. He doesn’t like it when people say that.
For the record, I think Iran is a looming danger, just like Iraq wasn’t, and a confrontation seems inevitable, whether military or otherwise. But what strikes me the most about the video linked above is that Tony Snow and Chris Matthews agreed that Iran’s population was largely young and pro-American. It almost makes one feel there might be some cause for long-term optimism after all. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to be able to wait that long.