Scott Galupo writes:

Romney wants the threshold for intervention set at “nuclear capability.” The Obama administration is more tight-lipped. It’s possible that a President Romney would have a quicker trigger on Iran, but I tend to doubt it. The idea that Obama is some kind of dove is a risible canard.

As Scott points out right here, Romney’s stated threshold for military action is lower than Obama’s. The administration is committed to using force to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. That’s bad enough as far as I’m concerned, but everyone can see that Iran would necessarily reach Romney’s “red line” sooner than it reaches Obama’s. It’s possible that both would end up blundering into a war with Iran, and it’s possible that neither will be so reckless. However, Romney wants it to be known that he will be quicker to attack Iran, and the public should take that seriously. War with Iran is more likely under Romney because Romney has a meaningfully lower standard for justifying military action against Iran. That doesn’t mean that Romney will start a war with Iran, but only that he is more likely to do so by his own admission.

No one still claims that Obama was or is a dove. Obama isn’t a dove now, and he wasn’t one in 2008. Obama opposed exactly one military intervention in the last twenty years and supported all of the others. This claim would be risible if anyone still made it, but no one does. Obama happened to oppose one unnecessary war, which is one more than Romney has ever opposed. Romney is on record favoring a preventive war in Iraq, and he continued to support it until the end. It is a stretch to say that Romney is not more likely to start another “preventive” war than his opponent, whose main policy difference with his opponent in 2008 and this year was his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq.