The subject is war, a familar topic for Ned Lamont’s time in the public eye.
Lamont, who was a political phenom in 2006 when he ran against Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman as an anti-war candidate, makes the case for containment in a HuffPo piece today. He sees everyone from President Obama to Mitt Romney too willing to flex their muscles.
America is getting an itchy trigger finger, he says. Even as the U.S. winds down in Iraq and Afghanistan, others are casting hard looks at at Iran and Pakistan. Some are running for president, others are ready to exit elective politics.
One is familiar to Lamont, who writes:
” ‘I know that containment might have been viable for the Soviet Union during the cold war, but it is not going to work with the current fanatical Islamist regime in Iran,’ said outgoing Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. Of course, there were similar arguments directed at the shoe-thumping fanatic Khrushchev, not to mention Mao’s nuclear-armed China, which spoke of sacrificing half of China’s population in a nuclear war to promote communism. Presidents from Truman and Eisenhower to Reagan and Clinton chose containment. “Trust but verify,” Reagan commanded, and the Iranian call for talks starting next month must focus on verification of the civilian uses of the Iranian nuclear program.”