Iran War delusion: "We can best this adversary with relative ease."

We have here from PBS NewsHour what could become a classic moment in the War to Kill As Many Franz Ferdinands as Possible, What we know about Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq 01/07/2019.

Nick Schifrin interviews two officials to give Both Sides of the story. On One Side is Mara Karlin of John Hopkis School School of Advanced International Studies, who provides critical-minded and cautious commentary on the risks in the current situation and focuses on the need to do what sane people want, find a way to stop the spiral toward war.

The Other Side is Michael Doran of the rightwing Hudson Institute who explains why escalation toward more war is absolutely necessary and anyone who says otherwise is a wimpy pooh-pooh head.

Here's the video.

There doesn't seem to be a transcript available yet. But here's my summary.

SANE PERSON KARLIN: Assassinating Qasem Soleimani was a major esclation by the US. (Includes ritual affirmation that Soleimani was a Bad Guy.)

BLITHERING WARMONGER DORAN: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran! Also: "This is a war."

SANE PERSON KARLIN: Seriously, we need to be realistic about what a serious step the Seleimani assassination was and we don't actually know jack about why the Organge Clown in the White House actually did that.

BLITHERING WARMONGER DORAN: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!

SANE PERSON KARLIN: "it is clear that the US and the Iranians are now in a tit-for-tat escalatory spiral. It is hard to see how this turns out well."

BLITHERING WARMONGER DORAN: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!

SANE PERSON KARLIN: It's painfully obvious that the US push for war makes no rational sense for any realistic view of American interests and that this is a major mess unfolding rapidly in real time. "I's a little bit hard to figure out how, as [BLITHERING WARMONGER DORAN] says, any sort of deterrence would be restored" by a US decision to escalate toward greater conflict.

BLITHERING WARMONGER DORAN: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!

SANE PERSON KARLIN: Look, a war with Iran will be a disaster for the US in more ways than we can count.

BLITHERING WARMONGER DORAN: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!

Doran has his own version of the infamous cakewalk analogy. "Iran is like a pufferfish. ... We can best this adversary with relative ease."

The much safer assumption is that the Pufferfish War will make the Iraq War actually look a bit more like a cakewalk by comparison.

One of the best-known apocraphal Mark Twain quotes is, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”

We've seen this movie before with the Iraq War. We don't need a remake that would be far worse than the original. But this one is rhyming an awful lot at the moment.