Alex Massie finds Daniel Pipes’ recent call for attacking Iran disgraceful, and he is right about that. What is more remarkable is Pipes’ conceit that Obama could somehow “save” his Presidency by launching yet another unnecessary war of aggression in the Near East. Reviewing the last seven years, we can see that this is simple insanity. After the initial rallying-to-the-flag effect that always occurs, unnecessary wars or wars that achieve nothing are political disasters for the leader and party that pursue them.

Bush launched such a war in Iraq, and within three years his party and his administration were wrecked. They have not yet recovered, and there is no evidence that they have figured out why they lost power. Olmert escalated a minor border skirmish into a major international war, and he attempted to retrieve his government’s political fortunes with another excessive military operation, and he managed to botch both badly enough that he and his party were swept from power shortly after the strikes on Gaza ended. Jose Maria Aznar went against public opinion in his country in joining the war in Iraq and he attempted to exploit a terrorist atrocity provoked by that involvement for political gain. His party was driven out and has remained in the opposition ever since. Were Obama foolish enough to launch strikes on Iran or allow strikes on Iran to be launched by an ally, he would destroy any chance at re-election as the ruinous consequences of that decision unfolded over the next two years.

It is true that a majority of the public supports bombing Iran in the event that Iran acquires a nuclear weapon. This is madness, but it is not entirely their fault. This is a result of the ceaseless fearmongering about a non-existent Iranian threat that Pipes and his allies have engaged in for almost a decade. It is also a result of the public’s lack of understanding of what a war with Iran would mean for our forces in the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a complete obliviousness to the economic consequences of turning the Persian Gulf into a war zone. There would likely be some short-term boost in the polls for Obama after the initial attacks on Iranian facilities, but as the conflict dragged on, the price of oil skyrocketed and American casualties rose the public would rapidly lose their taste for it. Nothing would be a more certain ticket to a failed, one-term Presidency than ordering an attack on Iran.