NOTHING TO SEE HERE, NOTHING TO SEE - AT 10:42 P.M. ET:  Do you sometimes get the feeling that Washington is just a series of reruns and revivals, where you get to see actors reprise their old roles? 

It seems that way, doesn't it?  Today, for example, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, under golden oldie John Kerry, held a hearing on Iran.  And who were the stars?  Why, none other than those audience favorites, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmah Carter's failed national security adviser, and Brent Scowcroft, who had a similar track record under Bush 41.  And their advice?  Why, don't worry so much.  The biggest threat comes not from an Iranian nuclear bomb, but from the arms race that the bomb might start.

Hey guys, I'll worry first about the bomb, then about the arms race.  The bomb can be sailed into Baltimore harbor, and really ruin the season for the Orioles.  The arms race is a future abstraction.

These guys have been selling this line for years.  We have a fanatical regime in Iran, one with a religious vision of the world, where suicide is glory, and two  retreads are telling not to worry.  They also waxed philosophical about the good old days, and assured us that deterrence would work with Iran as it did with the former Soviet Union. 

Next week I expect to hear this Abbott and Costello act inform us that a weak country like Japan, with no natural resources, would never attack Pearl Harbor.  And they'd believe it. 

March 5, 2009