Yesterday’s Senate debate over detainee policy offered a venue for hawks like Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to defend a controversial provision in a defense spending bill permitting for the indefinite military detention of terror suspects.

Critics of the provision warn that the detention provisions could result in U.S. citizens being held in indefinite military detention and denied access to civilian courts. Graham — who has previously said the U.S. should detain terror suspects indefinitely — concluded his defense of military detention for terror suspects by comparing the threat from Al Qaeda to that posed by Nazi Germany during World War II, saying:

GRAHAM: No one in World War II would have tolerated the idea that someone who collaborated with a Nazi, trying to kill us on our own soil, would have any other disposition than to be considered an enemy of the American people. Now my question for this body is, do you think Al Qaeda is an organization that doesn’t present that same kind of threat?

Watch it:

The European Theater of World War II took the lives of 135,576 American soldiers. By contrast, a State Department report found that 15 Americans died from terrorism in the last year — making it more likely to die from lightning strikes or dog bites — and a Duke terrorism study concluded that since 9/11, terrorist plots within the U.S. have killed 33 individuals.

Graham’s assertion that the threat from Al Qaeda can be compared to the Nazi threat during World War II is bordering on the absurd. And the death of Osama bin Laden “severely weakened” the terrorist organization, according to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

While the threat from Al Qaeda continues to pose a national security threat worthy of discussion, Graham’s comments dramatically overstate the threat facing Americans and trivialize the danger posed by Nazi Germany.

The Obama administration, while wanting to apply additional pressure on Iran, came out today in a letter to a key Member of Congress and in a Congressional hearing with “strong opposition” to a Senate amendment to the Defense Department budget that would level hard-hitting sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank (CBI). The Kirk-Menendez amendment, named for the sponsoring Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), would bar any companies or central banks abroad that do business through Iran’s central bank from doing any business in the U.S. Kirk has said the legislation was designed to collapse Iran’s currency and expressed indifference to the suffering of ordinary Iranians as a result of doing so.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today, two administration officials pushed back against the Kirk-Menendez amendment, offering a critique that while they shared the goals that underly the bill — pressuring Iran — they feared consequences of the legislation might be counterproductive.

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen, who recently returned from a trip to Israel and the United Arab Emirates to work with U.S. allies in pressuring Iran, told the committee that the Kirk-Menendez amendment could shatter the international coalition that has been successful in slowing Iran’s nuclear progress:

COHEN: [It] risks fracturing the international coalition that has been built up over the last several years to bring pressure to bear on Iran, especially today in the aftermath of what has occurred in Tehran over the last several days, in the aftermath of the IAEA report, and in the growing sense of urgency internationally with respect to Iran’s nuclear program.

I think we have an opportunity to work cooperatively and collaboratively with our international partners to bring additional pressure to bear on Iran. The amendment, however, would focus the most powerful sanction that we have, the termination of access to the United States on the largest financial institutions and the central banks and some of our closest partners.

Watch the video:

Cohen said the “threat of coercion that is contained in the amendment” could alienate even close and cooperative allies like Japan and European countries. The administration believes, Cohen added, that cooperation and coordination can be better achieved “if we approach this issue through an effort to coordinate action voluntarily.”

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who also appeared at the hearing, said the administration’s analysis concludes that “there is absolutely a risk that in fact the price of oil would go up, which would mean that Iran would in fact have more money to fuel its nuclear ambitions, not less.”

Also today, as committee chair Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) acknowledged, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote a letter to Armed Services chair Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) stating the administration’s “strong opposition to this amendment because, it its current form, it threatens to undermine the effective, carefully phased, and sustainable approach we have undertaken to build strong international pressure against Iran.”

Last night speaking with campaign donors at the home of American Jewish Congress Chairman Jack Rosen, President Obama noted that his administration has been an ardent supporter of Israel’s security:

“I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration,” Obama said. “We don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security … and that will continue.”

It should come as no surprise that the right-wing pro-Israel types who believe Obama hates Israel immediately began to hyperventilate. “[N]o one, not [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu nor most American Jews, is fooled by Obama’s boasting,” Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin wrote today.

While Netanyahu has refused to weigh in publicly on this issue, his defense chief has. “I can hardly remember a better period” of American support for Israel, Israeli Defense Minster Ehud Barak said in August. Just last month, Barak said of Obama, “I don’t think that anyone can raise any question mark about the devotion of this president to the security of Israel.” Another Israeli official has said that U.S.-Israeli cooperation on Iran intelligence is “even better than under President Bush.” Even Bush administration hawk Eliott Abrams agreed that “it’s the best military-to-military relationship ever.”

And when asked on Fox News this morning about Obama’s comment, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said “it is true”:

LIEBERMAN: I will say first that Israel has been fortunate that presidents and members of Congress of both parties, by and large have been very strong supporters of the security of the state of Israel because of our alliance and our shared values in democracy and all the rest. It is true, and you’ll hear this from a lot of Israeli leaders, that President Obama has been very good on supporting Israel’s military and its security.

Watch it:

“Clearly the Obama administration remains deeply committed to the U.S.-Israel alliance,” AIPAC spokesman Josh Block said last year, “and supporting aid to Israel and deepening our military cooperation is just one aspect of that.”

The Council on Foreign Relations’ Max Boot is no stranger to calling for increasingly confrontational measures to address Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. But in a column in today’s L.A. Times, Boot doubles down on his calls for war while in the same breath admitting that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only delay Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. He writes:

[A]t this late date, even such tough actions might not stop Iran from going nuclear.

The only credible option for significantly delaying the Iranian nuclear program would be a bombing campaign.

While Boot completely skips an examination of the consequences associated with bombing Iran — including damaging any possibility of deterrence should Iran acquire nuclear weapons and giving pretext for brutal crackdowns on the Green Movement — he’s apparently willing to accept those consequences in exchange for just “delaying” the Iranian nuclear program.

Boot’s column is equally troubling in that it dramatically misrepresents the facts on the ground.

Boot suggests that Iran and al Qaeda are in league, even while admitting that the 9/11 report cleared Iran of any role in the 9/11 attacks. He also claims that while Iran was arming insurgents in Iraq, it “was covertly developing nuclear weapons.” The Nov. 8, report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) draws no such conclusion, leading a senior Obama administration official to observe:

The IAEA does not assert that Iran has resumed a full scale nuclear weapons program nor does it have a program [sic] about how advanced the programs really are.

Neoconservative talking points pushing for war hinge on the well worn argument that backing down from the use of force — as Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to negotiate with Adolf Hitler allegedly proved — will always result in failure. Boot writes:

In retrospect, weakness in the face of aggression is almost impossible to understand — or forgive. Why did the West do so little while the Nazis gathered strength in the 1930s?

In February 2003, Boot used a similar argument, urging President George W. Bush not to be swayed by antiwar protests opposing the imminent war in Iraq. He wrote:

When the demands of protesters have been met, more bloodshed has resulted; when strong leaders have resisted the lure of appeasement, peace has usually broken out.

Boot’s track record would suggest he’s far more interested in war than peace. Aside from his misstatement about intelligence estimates on Iran’s nuclear program, hyping of an Iran-Al Qaeda link and recycling of pre-Iraq War “appeasement” arguments, Boot is right about one thing: Attacking Iran would only delay its nuclear program. And for CFR’s Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, it seems that’s a good enough reason to live with the consequences that will result.

During the Senate defense programs and policy amendment debate, in which Senators vote on amendments to the annual Defense Department budget, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke up against a bi-partisan amendment designed to expedite the troop drawdown from the U.S.-led Afghanistan war. The drawdown the president announced this year will still leave around 60,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year. But even maintaining that level of troops isn’t good enough for McCain.

The most curious thing about McCain’s argument, though, is that the anecdote he delivered in support of it didn’t bolster the case for, as he claimed to put it, maintaining U.S. troops through the “fighting season,” the warmer months when there tends to be more fighting. But rather, McCain made the case for the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan for a very, very long time.

McCain relied on the usual conservative trope that Obama should have deferred to the generals on his withdrawal decision — despite the chain of command (which the generals themselves understand well) and McCain’s own selective reliance on the brass’ word. But he had a twist: He posited that the end of the war would come when the Taliban insurgency acquiesced to the terms of a peace deal. This, his story suggested, would never happen if the U.S. leaves.

Here’s McCain’s story about an unnamed former George W. Bush administration official:

A story was related to me just recently. Former member of the previous administration, high ranking, in a meeting with one of the highest ranking members of the government of Pakistan. He said, to this high-ranking government official, “What do you think the chances of peace with the Taliban are?” That individual just laughed and said, “Why should they make peace? You are leaving.” Those are fundamental facts.

Watch the video of McCain on the floor of the Senate here:

But McCain’s anecdote isn’t about staying through this “fighting season,” as he claims commanders on the ground advocated for, with the Obama administration setting the partial drawdown timeline for a few months earlier. Rather, McCain’s statement that the Taliban won’t make peace because the U.S. is leaving applies just as much to the middle of the “fighting season” as it does the end of the “fighting season.” Instead, McCain’s anecdote seems to call for a heavy, long-term military presence, perhaps an interminable one. After all, according to McCain’s story, no peace deal can be made to end the Afghanistan war if the U.S. leaves. Perhaps that’s why, over McCain’s objections, the amendment to expedite the Afghanistan withdrawal passed the Senate.

Indeed, like in Afghanistan, if McCain had his way in Iraq, American troops would be there for at least 97 more years, instead of coming home by the end of this month.

In an interview with Reuters, Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said that U.S. policy on Iran pursued a pressure track along with “the stated intent not to take any options off the table.” He added: “I’m not sure the Israelis share our assessment of that.” Asked by Reuters if Israel would warn the U.S. before a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, Dempsey said he doesn’t know:

There has been concern that if world powers cannot nudge Iran into serious nuclear negotiations, then Israel, which feels threatened by Iranian nuclear aspirations, will attack.

Asked directly whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it chose to go forward with military action, Dempsey replied flatly: “I don’t know.”

On the heels of the interview, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak hinted that, though a “last resort,” Israel might be forced to take military action. “Israel is a sovereign state and it is the government of Israel, the Israeli army and security forces who are responsible for Israel’s security, future and survival,” he said. “We don’t need unnecessary wars. But we definitely might be put to the test.”

Barak reportedly rebuffed U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last month when Panetta sought assurances that Israel would give the U.S. a heads up if it decided to attack Iran. Barak refused to “give any assurances that Israel would first seek Washington’s permission, or even inform the White House in advance” of an impending attack, according to an unnamed source in the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper.