In 2008, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain generated controversy when, to the bars of an old Beach Boys song, he intoned: “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”

The 2012 GOP field, with the notable exception of Rep. Ron Paul, indicated a willingness to do just that in Wednesday night’s debate on CNN.

“I do believe there are moments to preempt,” said ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “You have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity to get nuclear weapons.”

Ex-Gov. Mitt Romney, treating the decision as America’s to make, declared: “We simply cannot allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.” Romney said the U.S. should tell Iran that it is “considering military options.”

Along with the European Union, the U.S. has supported sanctions that have sapped the value of Iran’s currency and led to widespread inflation and shortages. But the Obama administration has not done enough, argued Romney.

“This president should have put in crippling sanctions against Iran: He did not,” said Romney.

Iran has a “dangerous theocratic regime,” said Santorum, who himself has argued for a faith-based perspective on American public policy. He, too, would “send that very message” about using force.

Paul dissented, on constitutional, strategic and economic grounds.

“This is war,” said the libertarian Texas congressman. “People are going to die. You need a declaration of war.”

He argued that the U.S. has 45 bases surrounding Iran, and that unaccounted-for nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union could pose a far greater threat to the security of the world. And, added Paul, the United States has spent $1 trillion on two wars in the last decade which have left the country “bogged down.” He noted that a war in Afghanistan bankrupted the Soviet Union.

But fellow candidates did not stop with rattling sabres at Iran. They advocated arming rebels fighting the Syrian government.

“We should have our allies covertly destroying the Assad regime,” said Gingrich.

The United States should “provide the kind of weaponry needed to arm the rebels,” added Romney.

And Santorum went back to the subject of Iran, saying: “This president obviously has a problem in standing up to Iran in any form.”

A note: Unlike fellow candidates, Paul served in the military as a physician. He has more campaign donors among active-duty service members and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than all other GOP contenders combined.