On Fox News after last night’s GOP presidential candidate debate, Rick Santorum tried to take a jab at President Obama’s foreign policy but in doing so he just made himself out to look a bit foolish:

SANTORUM: And the main thing that has to be done is we need to do what president Obama was very willing to do in Egypt and Libya but seems reticent to do in Syria and Iran, those two connected states, which is to support the pro- democracy movement in those countries.

The president was ready to jump in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya and Egypt, but again has actually sided originally with Syria in this struggle by recognizing them as a government for first time in many years, put an embassy in place in Syria. And of course during the elections in 2009 when the green revolution was sparked in Iran, he sided with Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs.

Watch the clip:

Obama never “sided with Syria” since the pro-democracy movement broke out there nearly a year ago. In fact, last August, the president called on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down, and reiterated it earlier this month. “Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately,” Obama said. The United States also supported and pushed a recent U.N. Security Council measure calling on Assad to step down — only to be vetoed by Russia and China. The veto led Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to call for a “friends of democratic Syria” to unite and rally against Assad’s regime.

But Santorum’s claim that Obama recognized Syria’s government “for first time in many years” has no basis in reality. The United States first recognized an independent Syrian state in 1944 and last reestablished diplomatic relations 30 years later. In 2005, President Bush withdrew the U.S. ambassador in response to the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, but the U.S. did not cut diplomatic relations. In 2010, Obama installed a new ambassador to Damascus, Robert Ford, amid Republican intransigence, and since then Ford became a thorn in the Assad regime’s side until he, and all embassy staff, were forced to evacuate last month due to increasing violence.

In last night’s GOP presidential debate on CNN, moderator John King allowed a viewer to introduce a topic bedeviling U.S. foreign policy at the moment — Iran’s nuclear program. With war chatter on the rise, top U.S. officials have injected their opinions into the public debate.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Sunday that an Israeli attack on Iran was “not prudent at this point” and that such a strike would be “destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve [Israel's] long-term objectives.” When King asked Newt Gingrich if, as president, he would take Dempsey’s advice, the former House Speaker dismissed the U.S.’s top military officer opinion, saying he “can’t imagine why” Dempsey holds some of his views:

GINGRICH: Well, first of all this is two different questions. General Dempsey went on to say that he thought Iran was a rational actor. I can’t imagine why he would say that. And I just cannot imagine why he would have said it. The fact is, this is a dictator, Ahmadinejad, who has said he doesn’t believe the Holocaust existed. This is a dictator who said he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. This is a dictator who said he wants to drive the United States out of the Middle East. I’m inclined to believe dictators. Now I — I think that it’s dangerous not to.

Watch a video of King’s question and Gingrich’s full answer:

Dempsey’s views track with those of the U.N. nuclear agency and reported U.S. intelligence estimates, as well as the public testimony of the top U.S. intelligence official. On Capitol HIll last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said of Iran’s nuclear program: “They are certainly moving on that path, but we don’t believe they’ve actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.”

Not only does Gingrich dismiss the opinion of the top American military officer, but he also badly misstates Iranian political dynamics. On NPR this morning, Mehdi Khalaji — an actual Iran expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy — pointed out that Iran’s actual dictator is not President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, Iran is lead by a Supreme Leader, who holds the office for life and makes many of the state’s final decisions. Khalaji said:

The main decision maker on crucial issues, including the nuclear program, is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. … We have to bear in mind that he’s not only Iran’s supreme leader, he’s the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Khalaji’s latter comment means that Ahmadinejad cannot start a war — with Israel or anybody else — and that responsibility rests instead with the Supreme Leader.

If Gingrich wants to “listen to dictators” in order to justify his hawkish views, he should be free to do so. But it’s disconcerting that he doesn’t even know who the dictator is that he should be listening to.

The Daily Caller editor in chief Tucker Carlson faced an onslaught of criticism yesterday for telling Fox News “Red Eye” viewers that “Iran deserves to be annihilated.” Carlson’s comments, first reported on ThinkProgress, led The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to observe, “This is the sort of rhetoric that leads to war. I have no doubt this clip will be played over and over again in Tehran by a regime eager to prove that America wants to — to borrow a phrase — wipe Iran off the map.” In emails to Glenn Greenwald, Carlson largely walked back his statement, saying, “I think attacking could be a disaster for the US and am worried that Obama will do it, for fear of seeming weak before an election.”

Appearing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Carlson tried to walk back his comments:

I was actually trying to make the opposite point but I was doing it in a very inarticulate way. [...] I was actually urging caution. I’m not particularly hawkish to be totally honest with you.

Later in the show, facing a question from a call-in guest about his statement calling for the annihilation of Iran, Carlson responded, “I misrepresented my own views,” and attempted to clarify his position:

The point I was actually making on that show on Tuesday night was, which I’m sure you didn’t see, while Iran’s government clearly is evil and I would like to see Iran’s government crushed, I think there probably are consequences to bombing Iran and going to war with Iran that might hurt us. Specifically, what would it do to the cost of energy?

The two C-Span segments in which Carlson addresses his “Red Eye” comments are combined below:

Indeed, gas prices would, no doubt, skyrocket if the U.S. began another war in the Middle East. But that’s just one of many consequences. The U.S. Navy’s fifth fleet based in Bahrain, U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and Iraq’s stability could all be put in danger and Hezbollah could stage terrorist attacks on Israeli and/or U.S. targets. All of that aside, the large number of U.S. and Iranian casualties that would result from any attempt to “annihilate” Iran or overthrow the government with outside military force is well worth considering before casually discussing launching a third U.S. war in the Middle East.

While the IAEA has said it has concerns about military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. officials have said that its unclear whether the Islamic Republic has decided on building a bomb, an attack would give reason for Iran to weaponize its program.

Tucker Carlson’s efforts to walk back his incendiary statements are appreciated but there are other reasons, apart from rising gas prices, to be reticent to “annihilate” a country of 74 million people.