Democratic message on Iran

I watched Hugh Hewitt on a C-Span "Book TV" panel with Fred Barnes (Rep) and Bob Beckel (Dem). The subject was Hugh’s new book, Painting the Map Red. As usual, Beckel was full of criticism of the Bush Administration. Like the moonbats who comment anonymously on my blog, the Democrats are virtuosos in the fine arts of blame and nay-saying.

Unfortunately, they have nothing constructive to say. Who knows what they would do if in power. Howard Dean admits it, saying the Democratic Party does not and should not have any policy positions since they are in the minority. It’s like Rush says, the Dem’s can’t let you know what they really think or they would never win the presidency.

I decided to search the web for a Democratic position on the Iran “situation.” At a Lefty site called AMERICAblog, I found the “Democratic Message on Iran.” Are you ready? Here it is in nine points.

1. George Bush is the wrong man to be launching yet another war.

2. Slow down, we've got ten years.

3. Since we have ten years, we can at the very least wait seven months until the congressional elections this fall.

4. It is ridiculous to consider any congressional resolution on Iran until after the fall elections.

5. There is no reason we need to even go to war until Bush has left office.

6. Bush is the not the president we want exercising the nuclear option.

7. Bush either lied to us, or was unable to determine the truth, about Iraq's WMD program

8. What military and what money are we going to use to launch a war against Iran?

9. Why is it always us?

I don’t know about you, but this Democratic policy statement gives me confidence. Not confidence that the Democrats will defend America, but confidence that the Dem Party will eventually go the way of the Communist Party USA. These are not serious people.

It’s said here and in the main-stream media that America does not have the military to attack Iran and that a two front war is beyond our capability. When Hugh Hewitt posed this question to Mark Steyn yesterday, Mark’s response was that if that statement were in fact true, then shame on us! Clinton did his best to decimate the military, spending less than 3% of GDP on defense at the low point. Bush has been aggressively rebuilding the military but I do think it needs to be stronger still.

In round figures we now spend about $500B or 4% of GDP on defense. In order to build the strength of the military, I think we should do two things. First, increase all active military salaries by 50%. This might cost an additional $120B. Then I’d recruit an additional 100,000 troops at an additional $30B. The final defense budget would be about $650B or 5% of GDP, still low by historical standards. If we needed more then I can’t think of a more important expenditure of our federal funds.

I wonder if the Democrats would go for it.