Graham And Iran Again

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is screaming that the US must be prepared to use military force to stop Iran from getting nuke (which is not news) and even that we must be prepared to overthrow the Iranian regime (which is most certainly news).

Graham, a military lawyer and a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, became the first senator to support direct U.S. military intervention in Iran, saying it should not involve ground troops but be launched by U.S. warplanes and ships.

"If you use military force against Iran, you've opened up Pandora's box," Graham told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "If you allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, you've emptied Pandora's box. I'd rather open up Pandora's box than empty it."

Graham's unusual public support for overturning Ahmadinejad and the ruling council of Shiite Muslim clerics that he nominally heads recalled President George W. Bush's controversial policy of regime change to invade Iraq in 2003 and overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein.

Graham was a prominent supporter of the Iraq war, though he criticized Bush and former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld for sending too few U.S. troops.

Obama aides on the National Security Council declined to comment Monday on Graham's remarks about Iran.

State Department aides said Obama will discuss Iran on Thursday during his address to the U.N. General Assembly.

Graham said he believes Ahmadinejad "was lying" when he said Sunday in New York, after arriving for the U.N. General Assembly session this week, that Iran isn't building a nuclear bomb.

"From my point of view, if we engage in military operations as a last resort, the United States should have in mind the goal of changing the regime," Graham said. "Not by invading (Iran), but by launching a military strike by air and sea."

Now, I'm no Gen. George Patton, but last time I checked it's pretty much impossible to actually force a regime change by air power alone, and yet that's exactly what Graham is promising here: that we can take out Iran's nuclear capability and force regime change solely through air power with minimal loss of troops and none of this 9-year Afghan quagmire nonsense.

Is the man insane?  He has learned a grand total of nothing from Iraq, and Iran, unlike Iraq, actually has a decent military force as well as anti-air and anti-ship weapons that can definitely cause us serious problems.  Finally, all Iran has to do is close the Strait of Hormuz and bang, the world's oil tankers are stuck in the Middle East and unable to deliver oil without adding months to their trips, causing a massive worldwide oil disruption that would effectively triple oil overnight.

This is the kind of thing that even "moderate" Republicans want:  with our economy all but crumbling like thousand year old parchment in a hurricane, these guys want another multi-trillion dollar war...but can't be bothered to pay any additional money to help ordinary Americans.

Just another reminder that there is a difference between the Republicans and Democrats, and that putting the Republicans back in charge of Congress is going to be a brutally painful mistake.