Ron Paul is apparently coming on in Iowa, second in two Republican polls, a potential frontrunner. The media blackout may finally be ending. But the Wall Street Journal says Ron Paul’s Iowa race “faces hurdle”:

The problem: Mr. Paul’s anti-interventionist views on foreign policy. “‘That’s probably the hardest part,’ said Mr. Luethje [a volunteer for the Paul campaign], whose regular job is making eyeglasses. ‘A lot of Republicans are of this Christian mind-set that we need to defend Israel.'”

I finally caught up with the attack that mild Bob Schieffer of CBS launched on Ron Paul uncharacteristically on his Sunday morning political show last week, for violating the creed of the new establishment on terrorism and Iran. This is nuts.

Schieffer says angrily that Paul believes that 9/11 happened because of actions the United States took. And Schieffer tells Paul he’s wrong, that no report says that it is the case.

“That’s exactly what the 911 commission said…. our policies definitely had an influence,” Paul says. Then he states, beautifully, the case that they want to do us harm “because we’re free and prosperous” is a dangerous idea.

Schieffer scoffs at the idea that we should “be nicer to Iran’s leaders.”

Paul: “we have 12,000 diplomats. I’m suggesting we ought to use some of them…” The Cuban missile crisis was resolved diplomatically. “We didn’t say we’re going to attack [Soviet Union over Cuba]… the greatest danger for us now is to overreact… Iran doesn’t have a bomb, there’s no proof…”

Schieffer again contradicts Paul, says that no one in our gov’t is threatening military action. “May I correct you. The United States government is not going to attack Iran.”

Paul’s triumph: “But they say, Nothing is off the table.” That means military action.

Glenn Greenwald was on this a week ago, in typical steel-trap fashion: