John McCain is too stupid to be President

That or he is a giant fear-mongering hack. From Haaretz:

Republican John McCain accused Democrat Barack Obama of inexperience and reckless judgment for saying Iran does not pose the same serious threat to the United States as the Soviet Union did in its day.

The likely Republican presidential nominee made the criticism Monday in Chicago, Obama's home turf.

"Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess," McCain said at the restaurant industry's annual meeting.

He was referring to comments Obama made Sunday in Pendleton, Oregon: "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, 'We're going to wipe you off the planet.’

Look, this is really not all that hard to understand. On the one hand, the Soviet Union had a developed economy, stable and capable leadership, and an enormous standing military equipped with oh say a bajillion nuclear missiles on a hair trigger, pointed at us, capable of destroying the planet many times over. The USSR was an existential threat. Iran, on the other hand, has a much smaller, less discipline fighting force, an economy dependent on oil, hyper-reactive leadership with a penchant for terrorism (sporting a Members Only jacket, no less), and no nukes. Not to put too fine a point of it but not even in Ahmadinejad’s wettest jihadi dream can Iran destroy Israel, much less the US. We are talking apples and oranges here.

To sum up, USSR: capable of ending all life on Earth; Iran: vaguely menacing. These two threats are not even comparable.

So, is McCain a dummy or a panic pushing weasel? We report, you decide…

(Hat tip to Eschaton)