Zogby sez:

There is considerable division about when a strike on Iran should take place – if at all. Twenty-eight percent believe the U.S. should wait to strike until after the next president is in office while 23% would favor a strike before the end of President Bush’s term. Another 29% said the U.S. should not attack Iran, and 20% were unsure. The view that Iran should not be attacked by the U.S. is strongest among Democrats (37%) and independents, but fewer than half as many Republicans (15%) feel the same. But Republicans are also more likely to be uncertain on the issue (28%).

You might hope that the American people had tired of war. The numbers tell a different story. Here’s the key (emphasis added):

A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.

The numbers show a divided country even over using military force to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Of course, we could ask the electorate the same questions and include all the available information from the IAEA, the head of which:

ElBaradei sparked controversy with the US and French governments by declaring Sunday that he had no evidence to show that Iran is building nuclear weapons.

So, ask the question again: would you support military strikes against Iran in the absence of any evidence that shows they are building nuclear weapons? What response do you think we would get?

Meanwhile, the Washington Post op-ed page continues to show staggering complicity in provoking a confrontation with Iran. Just yesterday, Sebastian Mallaby suggested that the Kyl-Lieberman amendment was all about sanctions on Iran related to their unproven nuclear weapons program. Today, Richard Cohen more accurately depicts the amendment as all about declaring Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. But Cohen laments the fact that George W. Bush and General David Petraeus are the boys that cried wolf. No one believes their evidence anymore. Cohen even goes so far as to say that he fears the resulting mistrust of government ‘more than a senseless war with Iran.’

As the resolution states, the American military has “evidence” — the word is Gen. David Petraeus’s — of Iranian activity. “This is not intelligence,” the general told Congress. “This is evidence, off computers that we captured, documents and so forth.” Petraeus didn’t get his stars for nothing. He knows the level of well-earned cynicism that the word “intelligence” now engenders in Congress. Evidence! He’s talking evidence.

No matter. To a whole lot of people, Petraeus might as well have been talking dream interpretation. These people, most of them on the Democratic left, not only do not believe the evidence, they see the resolution as the old Bush administration rope-a-dope: the first step on the road to war with Iran…

…More than a senseless war with Iran — certainly premature at the moment — I fear the sort of malaise that came over America after the Vietnam War or, more to the point, the defeatism-turned-cynicism that crippled Britain and France following World War I.

It cannot be repeated enough that the IAEA has found no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. It also cannot be stated enough that much of the evidence the Pentagon has put out about Iran’s activities within Iraq has been retracted, gone unsubstantiated, or been disproven. No one disputes that Iran has a lot of influence in Iraq. The two holiest sites in Shi’a Islam are in the southern Iraq cities of Najaf and Kerbala. Iran is the largest Shi’a country in the world. Under Saddam, they were forbidden to make pilgrimages to their holy sites. It was inevitable that Shi’ites would band together, regardless of ethnicity, to make sure their interests are better protected in the new Iraqi government. But, the text of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment includes much that is in dispute. Despite this, Cohen says:

The resolution itself is a pretty straightforward affair, stating a compelling case that the al-Quds Force has interfered in Iraq and caused the deaths of Americans. Whatever you may feel about the war in Iraq, no one gets to kill Americans with impunity.

If you read the text of the amendment you’ll quickly realize that the only thing that is compelling is the fact that General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker and putting their names on unsubstantiated allegations. That is supposed to be enough…as though we haven’t been through this before with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and General Westmoreland. We know for an absolute fact that Dick Cheney is telling lies about the intelligence on Iran every single chance he makes a public statement, yet we are supposed to take his underling’s words at face value. Sorry, but we can’t do that. Cohen finishes his lament:

But the true realism is that Iran is a menace — potentially a great one — and that its Revolutionary Guard is engaged in the dirty business of killing Americans and others. The fact that the Bush administration says so does not make it otherwise.

The Senate’s resolution was a necessary step toward tightening sanctions on Iran — a way to avoid war, not the overture to one. It was intended to send a message of resolve, but the message that went out showed instead that a good piece of America thinks that Bush is its prime enemy — and Iran just another bee in his bonnet. This is the lamentable legacy of George W. Bush — an abuse of trust that has weakened the country he swore to protect.

Cohen resorts to begging the question to assert that Iran is a menace and that they are killing Americans. He then begs the question again by stating that sanctions are ‘necessary’. He falls into the false dichotomy of war or sanctions. And then, finally, he acknowledges that the blame for this falls on the Bush administration.

I don’t dispute that it is a problem that the public no longer believes the administration. But the far bigger problem is that so many of them do believe the administration and are willing to support a ‘senseless war with Iran.’