Even before the P5 +1 negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear program reach a conclusion, hawks in the United States are beating their war drums. Longtime neoconservative activist Joshua Muravchik published a piece in theWashington Post on March 13 ridiculing the notion that diplomacy might work with Tehran, insisting that war as the only prudent alternative. Less than two weeks later, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton published an op-ed in the New York Times advocating air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.

Two features of such proposals stand out. First, Muravchik, Bolton and other hawks are cavalier about the challenge of containing the effects of the new Middle East war that they want to initiate. In a March 25 debate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a less famous hawk, Georgetown University Associate Professor Matthew Kroenig, emphasized that he merely proposed air strikes, not putting U.S. boots on the ground. He was a tad vague, though, about what Washington's response would be if, or more likely when, Iran retaliated against American or allied targets. Bolton and other war proponents also tend to avoid discussing that messy detail.