Bush warns of "World War III" if Iran gets nukes

I have no problem with hawkish bloggers and columnists saying things like this, but, um, shouldn't the President of the United States be a little bit more circumspect with his rhetoric?

"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," Bush said at a White House press conference after Russia cautioned against military action against Tehran's supect atomic program. "So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," said Bush.

I agree that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a grave threat to world peace, and not just because there are some trigger-happy people in the White House right now (though, that too). But I'm not convinced that having the president say things like this, in public -- even if arguably somewhat true -- makes things better. Perhaps I'm wrong, though. Thoughts?

UPDATE: Via Hot Air by way of InstaPundit, here's the video:

In a related story, Bush still can't say "nuclear."

Comments

[Sandy Underpants]

I don't think it matters much what this clown says anymore. No one in America (or on this planet) respects him. He's got a lower approval rating than Richard Nixon on his last day before resigning in disgrace. Ridiculous Lou Dobbs was speculating today if the country can survive the last 15 months of this presidency, and that's saying something, what it is I'm not exactly sure, but it's something.

[Condor]

This was the funniest press conference I've ever seen (I watched the whole thing). Unfortunately, once you realize that Mr. Bush is in charge of the country, it's not quite so funny anymore. It would be great if he could just give press conferences and forget the whole leader of the free world schtick. Unfortunately, that seems to be what he's actually doing, though.

Anyone have something insightful and unpredictable to say?

[Mad Max, Esquire]

"Anyone have something insightful and unpredictable to say?"

Does "I agree with Brendan" count?

[JO]

Call me crazy, but the President of Iran says Israel should be wiped off the map. If he gets nukes and wipes out Israel, you don't think we'll respond rather harshly, thus causing China and Russia to jump in. That sounds like WWIII to me.

[Aaron]

Bush is an outstanding President.

[Aaron]

Ok, I got one out of two.

Re: "nuclear", I assume that a long time ago Bush decided he wasn't going to even try to pronounce it correctly. I expect he convinced himself that he pronounces it in the proper "folksy, regular guy" kind of way.

[Brendan]

JO, as I said, I'm not saying it wouldn't be World War III, necessarily -- I'm just saying I'm not sure the President of the United States should go around saying "World War III" in public.

Now, if he wants to say it to Sarkozy or Gordon Brown or Musharraf or Putin or whoever else in private, in an attempt to lobby them to go along and make them understand the importance of the threat, that's a totally different story. But to publicly shoot off his mouth about "World War III" seems a bit unwise, given his position.

Likewise, if we bloggers and blog commenters and such want to shoot off their mouths about it, that's also a different story.

It's like the difference between a) a coach condemning referees at a press conference, b) a coach complaining about referees in private, and c) fans complaining about referees on a message board. Both b) and c) are totally understandable and accepted. a), not so much.

And yes, I did just compare the possibility of war with Iran to bad refereeing. Personal foul on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 15 yards, automatic first down!

[Aaron]

No, I'm sorry, I have to jump in here. Do you seriously think* that China and Russia would go to war with the United States on behalf of Iran, after Iran had launched a nuclear first strike against Israel**? Seriously?

*I'm mainly talking to JO here, but also to Brendan, to the extent that he seemed to be conceding JO's point.

[Aaron]

I meant to add:

**Itself a fairly low probability.

[Andrew]

No sense in inviting me to answer this question, you should know I'm a big fan of frank talk and that I believe diplomatese is terribly counterproductive. Whether you go with Machiavelli or Teddy Roosevelt's "Talk softly and carry a big stick", I think the last hundred years conclusively prove that Western-style diplomacy is an utter disaster when it comes to achieving its objectives.

Also, I should add that very rarely is it better to sugarcoat and talk around a subject than speak truthfully, so diplomacy aside, Bush is right to say publicly what he truly thinks -- whether those thoughts disturb, anger, or inspire us.

[Andrew]

By the way, I still can't believe we're harping over Dubya's pronunciation of the word, "nuclear", when it's been nearly fifteen years since we last heard a president pronounce that word properly. It's a regional pronunciation, get over it. I mean, seriously, do you pronounce "iron" correctly? "Comparable"? Anyone here want to take a stab at pronouncing the word "solder"? Shall we lambast the Brits for mispronouncing it "aluminium"?

[Brendan]

Aaron, I think my use of the word "necessarily" indicates that I'm not conceding JO's point, I'm just declining to address it directly as I try to shift the focus back to the issue that I think is more pertinent. However, I would agree that it's pretty unlikely we'll have a true world war, in the style of World Wars I and II, on our hands if Iran goes nuclear, with Russia, China and Iran becoming the new Axis Powers, or whatever. However, this is a different era than those were, with far deadlier weapons that far smaller groups can wield, and there needn't necessarily be massive, WWI- or WWII-style territorial conflict to create something that could reasonably be called a "world war." If the Arab world is sufficiently inflamed that we basicallly have an all-out, sustained terrorist offensive throughout the West, explicitly supported by a handful of states (Iran, Syria, Pakistan after Musharraf is overthrown, perhaps Iraq after we withdraw and the Islamists take over), and we're bombing those states and they're continuing to sponsor attacks... oh yeah, and nukes are involved... I think that could potentially qualify as a "world war." I'm not predicting that exact scenario, certainly, but I certainly think some bad s**t could happen. I just generally think the ramifications of Iran going nuclear would be quite unpredictable and volatile, and not in a good way.

[Andrew]

After hearing about comments like this, I don't understand how anyone could possibly think Bush wasn't being circumspect enough with his rhetoric.