There are other issues with the column, including the fact that Senor was actually associated with Paul Bremer, who was despised by the neocons during the Iraq mess, as Ira Stoll points out. And there's this questionable statement: "Senor got out over his skis before Romney's speech in Jerusalem, telling reporters that Mitt would say he respected Israel's right to make a pre-emptive, unilateral attack on Iran's nuclear facilities." But Obama and Biden have both said that Israel, as a sovereign country, has the right to take measures in its self-defense it deems necessary. Romney wasn't actually veering wildly at all from the bipartisan consensus on this question.

And there's also this: "If President Romney acceded to Netanyahu's outrageous demand for clear red lines on Iran, this global confrontation would be a tiny foretaste of the conflagration to come."

Why is this an outrageous demand? The White House doesn't think this is outrageous. The President and his aides understand why Netanyahu would seek red lines. They would like to keep their red lines hidden from the Iranians (the smart move, obviously), but it is not "outrageous," in the course of Netanyahu's conversations with President Obama, for him to want to know precisely what might spark the U.S. into action? Certainly the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have also asked the same question of the President.

It's not outrageous, by the way, for President Obama to say in response, "Thanks, but no thanks, I'm not laying out our red lines for you." There is a separate question here, which has to do with Netanyahu's incompetent management of the U.S.-Israel relationship (if you want to find out red lines, don't mouth off about the President and the secretary of state two months before an election), but privately, he should bring up whatever issue he wants to bring up.

And one more thing. Maureen believes that Romney would lead us more quickly to war. But Obama is actually more likely than Romney to launch an attack on Iran. (I explain why here.)

More later.

