Romney endorses Obama: Yep, I'd do almost exactly what he is doing on Iran

That was my takeaway from Romney's op-ed
article in yesterday's Washington
Post on how he would handle Iran. The policy he recommends is
extraordinarily close to what Obama is doing and saying.

The only difference I see is that Obama
knows more about Iran than Romney does. Like history? "Ronald Reagan made
it crystal clear that the Iranians would pay a very stiff price for continuing
their criminal behavior," writes Gov. Romney. If I were a Republican, I
wouldn't be recommending Reagan's handling of Iran as the model, unless the
moderate Massachusetts millionaire wants to endorse giving Iran more weapons in
exchange for the release of hostages, as of course the Reagan Administration
did.  

But the stupidest line in the article might be this one: "I
will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can
but alone if we must." Dude, how are sanctions gonna work if we impose them
alone? They won't, so they must be imposed multilaterally. Which is what
President Obama
happens to be doing. I have to wonder who in the Romney campaign thought this
article was a good idea. 

Meanwhile, I suspect that one thing Republican hawks don't
understand is the
depth of opposition inside the military to attacking Iran. (Of course, back
in 2002-03, lots of people in the military were against attacking Iraq-but the
administration back then was all hot to trot, and did not want to be confused by
facts.)  

Here is what old Obama said yesterday at a press conference
about all this:

When I see the casualness with which
some of these folks talk about war, I'm reminded of the costs involved in
war.  I'm reminded that the decision that I have to make in terms of
sending our young men and women into battle, and the impacts that has on their
lives, the impact it has on our national security, the impact it has on our
economy. 

This is not a game.  There's
nothing casual about it.  And when I see some of these folks who have a
lot of bluster and a lot of big talk, but when you actually ask them
specifically what they would do, it turns out they repeat the things that we've
been doing over the last three years, it indicates to me that that's more about
politics than actually trying to solve a difficult problem.

Now, the one thing that we have not
done is we haven't launched a war.  If some of these folks think that it's
time to launch a war, they should say so.  And they should explain to the
American people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would
be.  Everything else is just talk.