“Hit Iran now. Hit them hard,” one Republican senator advises US President Joe Biden. “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” chimes in another. Anything less, he adds, “will confirm Joe Biden as a coward.”

Such schoolyard baiting rarely yields good strategy. As Republicans line up to attack their perceived enemy — Biden, that is — they seem to see the president’s alleged “weakness” as the sole cause of every global problem, and to assume that things could not be made immeasurably worse — as in World War III worse — by goading him into letting slip the dogs of war. Wisdom and strength look different. If the Republicans don’t get that, let’s hope Biden will.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o7jOqKSbnaKce6S7zGimqaGenryve8Crq6KbnJrAcH6Pa2tmaGFif3p7waKbnqZdo7KmsNJmq6hlmZy7sL7EZp6oqF2oerS00aKjpZ2jqXqkrculqmaen6d6t7HNoJyappOaerC6jKKpmqY%3D