Ed Morrissey reports that Team McCain “emphatically denies any suggestion that Lieberman would get selected as his running mate if McCain wins the Republican nomination.”

It’s something I’ve asked several people, Ed being one of them, myself: could we see a McCain-Lieberman ticket? In my eyes that would be the ultimate moderate ticket, wouldn’t it? And McCain’s acceptable - it seems - to conservatives and Lieberman is quite respected because of his views on Iraq (not on other issues of course). (more…)

Please read this post by Joe Gandelman about Joe Lieberman’s views on Iran. Lieberman has said that the US should consider using military force against Iran “if it meddles in Iraq.”

Furthermore, Joe also quotes this article at Debka:

The regime heads in Tehran are basing their common front with Damascus on intelligence reports whereby the US and Israel have drawn up plans for coordinated military action against Iran, Syria and Hizballah in the summer.

According to this hypothesis, Iranian leaders foresee the next UN Security Council in New York at the end of June or early July ending with an American announcement that the sanctions against Tehran are inadequate because Russia and China has toned them down. Therefore, the military option is the only one left on the table. The ayatollahs have concluded that US president George W. Bush is determined to bow out of office on the high note of a glittering military success against Iran to eclipse his failures in Iraq.

They believe he will not risk the lives of more Americans by mounting a ground operation, but rather unleash a broad missile assault that will wipe out Iran’s nuclear facilities and seriously cripple its economic infrastructure.

According to the Iranian scenario, the timeline for hostilities has already been fixed between Washington and Jerusalem - and so has the plan of action. The US will strike Iran first, after which Israel will use the opportunity to go for Syria, targeting its air force, missile bases and deployments, as well as Hizballah’s missile and weapons stocks which Iran replenished this year.

I am of the “if there is no other way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, then military force should be used”-school, but this:

George W. Bush is determined to bow out of office on the high note of a glittering military success against Iran to eclipse his failures in Iraq.

Is not a good reason to attack the country formerly known as Persia. The reason, again, should be because it is the only, and truly the only way, to prevent Iran from developing WMDs. Bush’s honor has, or should have, nothing to do with it.

Iran should indeed stop meddling in Iraq. However, by all accounts Iran’s influence is reasonably limited, that’s one, and two, it’s not enough to go to war over.

Senator Joe Lieberman is positive about the surge:

What a coincidence. Two years after Cheney said the insurgency was in its last throes, Joe Lieberman made essentially the same prediction.

CNN reports that Lieberman is on an unannounced “surprise” visit to Baghdad. Paula Hancocks followed Lieberman around. She talked to Lieberman and reported, “He said he was happy with the progress. He was devastated by the fact that May was turning in to the deadliest month since November 2004. But he said he did believe that this surge eventually would pay off and it would start to break the insurgency.”

AMERICAblog has a nice video up of Lieberman strawling through Baghdad (”in full battle gear”).

I really wished that politicians would stop going to Baghdad, for a strawl, to ‘prove’ how well the surge is working. They always end up making fools of themselves. You see them walking through the desert, surrounded by dozens of US forces, wearing body armor, a minute later they say how the security situation has improved…

I do believe that the surge is working now, however. My problem with the surge is not that I believe it will not accomplish anything in the short run. The problem is the long run. The situation might temporarily improve, but that is not enough.