"The Iranian government has declared war on us"

Sen. Joe Lieberman is calling for the United States to confront Iran with military force.

Iran is allegedly training Shi'ite fighters who then go to Iraq to attack American troops.

"These revelations should be a wake-up call to the United States about the threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as a reminder why Iraq is, in fact, the central front of the global war on terror," said Mr. Lieberman, a hawkish former Democrat who lost his party's 2006 primary because of opposition from antiwar groups, but then ran as an independent and kept his seat anyway.

"Although no one desires a conflict with Iran, the fact is that the Iranian government by its actions has declared war on us," said Mr. Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic nominee for vice president.

Regardless of the validity of those reports, it's painfully clear that the US military is stretched too much already with Afghanistan and Iraq - and it's difficult to see what there would be to gain from stretching it further.

Iran's probably itching for America to make that kind of move, too - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would love the justification to go directly after America, not to mention the PR opportunities it'd give him.

If the United States ever wanted to get away with attacking Iran, they'd have to do a hell of a lot to rebuild their foreign relations perception, which Dubya has left in tatters over the course of his administration. Without serious backup from across the world - diplomatically as well as militarily - the US would quickly find itself standing alone.

And while "patriots" (read: nationalists) like Lieberman would probably see no problem with that, it would be suicide orders to anybody moved to the front.