Tongue Tied Tucker

Yesterday Tucker Carlson said Iran was evil "and deserves to be annihilated." You and I don't take overpaid TV blowhards too seriously (one hopes), but there's considerable fear that Iran might do so. Whether taking the threat of an Israeli or U.S. attack seriously would lead to war or the negotiating table remains an open question. It occurs to me that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, without having set out to do so, have fallen into a good cop, bad cop dynamic that is making the threat of an Israeli attack seem more imminent than it perhaps is -- which, again, may help draw Teheran into a meaningful conversation about how to avoid war, which would be by not developing a nuclear weapon. George W. Bush pulled off something similar with Libya.

In any event, Carlson apologized for being "tongue tied" and then enunciated a position that makes sense:

I'm actually on the opposite side on the Iran question from many people I otherwise agree with. I think attacking could be a disaster for the U.S. and am worried that Obama will do it, for fear of seeming weak before an election. Of course the Iranian government is awful and deserves to be crushed. But I'm not persuaded we or Israel could do it in a way that doesn't cause even greater problems. That's the main lesson of Iraq it seems to me.