Matt Steinglass comments on pro-war political pressures:

But if we’re talking about the political pressures the Obama administration could face to approve military action, then we’re talking about making the case to average voters. In that case what we need isn’t so much reference to expert opinion as a coherent line that evokes for voters the widely shared and accurate sense that miiltary adventurism in the Middle East has proven calamitous. Mr Shane’s article points out the contradiction: a solid majority of voters are weary of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and pleased we’re leaving, yet a majority also say they would support military action against Iran to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Voters don’t seem to be cognisant that an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites won’t be a discrete event that stops it from getting a bomb; it will be the start of a new war in the Middle East, and of an indefinite commitment by America to keep bombing Iran wherever it seems nuclear-weapons development sites are being built.

I agree with Steinglass that most of the public doesn’t seem to understand what attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities would involve, and most Americans seem blissfully unaware of the consequences that an Iranian war would likely have. Of course, Iran hawks encourage Americans to assume that the consequences would be minimal and the costs acceptable when they wouldn’t be. I suppose the most straightforward case to be made to most voters is that war with Iran would send energy prices through the roof and send the economy back into recession. I can guess what the results would be if pollsters asked Americans, “Are you willing to have $8/gallon gasoline and 12% unemployment to delay Iran’s nuclear program for a few years?” No one ever asks the question that way, which helps account for why a majority in a nation sick of endless warfare still expresses support for starting yet another war. Instead, pollsters often pose their questions in ways that are guaranteed to increase support for military action by minimizing costs of military action, exaggerating the effectiveness of that action, and maximizing the dangers of not attacking. This makes war seem much more likely than it really is. As Barry Rubin wrote today:

Iran doesn’t have deliverable nuclear weapons. It is not about to have deliverable nuclear weapons. Israel is not about to attack Iran. The United States is certainly not about to attack Iran. The whole idea that the leaders of Iran are crazed, suicidally minded people who expect the twelfth imam to arrive next Thursday is simply not true.

One thing consistently pushing public opinion on an Iranian war in a pro-war direction is the widely circulated false belief that the Iranian government cannot be deterred and would be willing to destroy itself for reasons of apocalyptic messianism. Republican voters are far more likely to believe this nonsense because their elected officials, presidential candidates, and pundits endorse this view with alarming regularity. If Rubin’s statement were the message that the American public was hearing on a regular basis, instead of the nonsense that many Americans encounter when they read or listen to arguments about Iran’s nuclear program, I suspect that public support for military action would be in the single digits.