Michael J. Totten underscores something that I worry about:

On the one hand, that’s a counterpoint to what Hoagland said. There should be no doubt whatever that Iran wants nukes. It hardly matters if our intelligence is weak and often wrong. Unlike Saddam, the ayatollahs brazenly announce their intentions.

[...] Where’s Bush? He just blew away the regime next door for less than this.

[...] The Democrats aren’t much interested in stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction. They seem to have forgotten everything they ever knew about nuclear proliferation as they harrumphed themselves into a corner over Saddam. I’m not hearing much from the right about this either, and my guess is because they trust Bush will handle it. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m just not seeing it. Bush might as well be off on a bender in the Bahamas right now.

— Michael J. Totten: Are We Out of Gas?

Chopped up series of paragraphs, I know, written apropos of a Washington Post opinion piece (I suppose it is an opinion piece; I never go to the Wa-Po anymore ever since they required me to register just to read their stuff) whose most salient sentence is this: The threshold for preventive war, for example, will be raised significantly for the immediate future.

One of the problems that I have had with the Bush lied crowd is that it has assumed malice for every inconsistency and unsatisfactory result that occurs with Iraq. “No WMD yet” gets the “LIE!” response. The president said we’re not going to wait for Saddam to be an imminent threat; his words get twisted as claiming that he was. It boggles my mind to try and fathom the estimable perfection that George Bush’s detractors, foaming at the mouth as they are, demand of him. That the president’s mistakes are immediately branded as lies is a huge symptom of the malaise of bad faith that has hit The Looney Left.

Then there is the proliferation of axiomatic disagreements. One man’s “militant” is another’s “terrorist.” Those who intend to kill our troops are considered minutemen by Michael Moore; just as we consider them to be grave threats to our safety. “Abuse,” versus “torture,” versus “strategic interrogation.” It boggles my mind when the matter of semantics becomes the central issue, so much so that any manual for action (such as suggested by Zombyboy) that would be deemed perfect — yet again, “perfect” for our political opposites — would rival the Koran in its exhaustive nature.

Perfect is the enemy of good; with that headspace in mind, what, then, would be the only perfect reason for us to defend ourseleves? It sure will not be “preventive,” especially if things do not go well with Iraq. I am most disturbed, not by the escalations in violence, which, though tragic are more than expected, but by the possibility that the cynics will get away with calling the new Iraqi government a “failed exercise” the moment a terror attack happens after the transfer or power. This kind of cynicism, this kind of perfectionism and warped idealism, will lead us to defeat this time, and in the future will paralyze us from taking necessary steps to protect ourselves, even after a major US city is turned into a radioactive wasteland.

My wish — my only wish — with regards to our foreign policy is that we do not fall into a paralysis where we will be so afraid of fouling things up that nothing will get done. That will be the death of all of us.