Yet Another Self-Refuting Column

Here is Frank Rich discussing the dangers of a United States military strike on Iran (embedded hyperlinks removed):

There are saner military minds afoot now: the defense secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen, the Central Command chief William Fallon. They know that a clean, surgical military strike at Iran could precipitate even more blowback than our “cakewalk” in Iraq. The Economist tallied up the risks of a potential Shock and Awe II this summer: “Iran could fire hundreds of missiles at Israel, attack American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, organize terrorist attacks in the West or choke off tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s oil windpipe.”

The point seems to be that the United States could end up being totally screwed if it attacks Iran. Later in the column, Frank Rich writes (embedded hyperlinks removed):

A full-scale regional war, chaos in the oil market, an overstretched American military pushed past the brink — all to take down a little thug like Ahmadinejad (who isn’t even Iran’s primary leader) and a state, however truculent, whose defense budget is less than 1 percent of America’s? Call me a Pollyanna, but I don’t think even the Bush administration can be this crazy.

The argument seems to be that Iran could do all sorts of horrible things to us if we attack it, therefore, we shouldn't bully such a pathetically weak nation.