Where's Stephen Hopkins when we need him?

There's a moment in the musical 1776 when Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island breaks the deadlock on debating independence by saying, "I've never seen, heard, nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked about." We need a few more people like him around American politics today - and a few less who are ready to pillory those who will talk. Like Jimmy Carter.

Joe Conason speaks some blunt truth today:

Nobody with a functioning memory should be too quick to condemn Jimmy Carter for daring to speak with the leadership of Hamas, as nearly everyone along the American political spectrum suddenly has felt obliged to do.

he begins, and concludes

there can be no sustainable deal between Israel and the Palestinians that is not accepted by Hamas.

Yet our current policy not only rejects any direct discussion with the Islamist party, but condemns any effort to learn what might bring them into the diplomatic process—or induce them to accept a negotiated settlement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Instead, we would require them to effectively surrender every point before we will even talk to them. It is the same mindless policy once directed by the White House toward our adversaries in Iran and North Korea until its uselessness became too obvious to ignore.

It is indeed counterproductive to insist that someone cede every single point before you will even talk. Talking is what gets them to cede points. Talking to Hamas doesn't mean rolling over and playing dead for them, despite what a lot of people in our government profess to believe.

And in that vein the Washington Post reports today that

The nation's top military officer said today that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be "extremely stressing" but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.

"Stressing"? You think?

They Pentagon is trotting out those old stories about the little boats "threatening" US naval vessels, though they have to admit they've no proof:

But while Mullen and Gates have recently stated that Tehran must know of Iranian actions in Iraq, which they say are led by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mullen said he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved in this."

But for these people proof is hardly necessary. Their assertions are all they need.

War is easy to start and hard to end. Haven't we learned that yet?