Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has staked out a hawkish position on Iran. The PM has warned that world-powers who just completed a round of nuclear negotiations with Iran in Istanbul could be falling into “a trap” if they continue to pursue diplomacy with Tehran.

But while both Obama and Netanyahu have kept all options — including the military one — on the table, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor publicly warned today that an attack on Iran could prove damaging to Israeli security interests. Meridor spoke with Metro International’s Elisabeth Braw at the Israeli embassy in London:

ELISABETH BRAW: What about ending it with a military strike?

DAN MERIDOR: That option was recently mentioned by President Obama in a positive way. He said he ruled in this possibility. It’s possible that we have to use force. All this pressure should persuade Iran to end its nuclear program. But I don’t think Israel should use the military option. I don’t agree with some of my colleagues who support a military strike. An attack on Iran wouldn’t add anything to our security.

The Deputy PM’s views closely match those expressed by former Israeli spy agency Chief Meir Dagan last month. Dagan warned that bombing Iran would “ignite, at least from my point of view, a regional war,” and that no military attack would be able to permanently halt the Iranian nuclear project. The opinion that military action won’t be able to stop Iran’s nuclear program is shared by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Meridor went on to emphasize that a military strike on Iran would be nothing like the Six-Day War, a comparison occasionally floated by Iran hawks, and emphasized that Iran might be persuaded, through rational self-interest, to accept a diplomatic solution to the standoff over their nuclear program:

In the past, at least once or twice, the Iranians took to reason. For example, when [Ayatollah] Khomeini stopped the war with Iraq, he did so with a very illuminating statement that hade nothing to do with God but with a practical approach: “we can’t afford this war.” I hope the Iranians will engage in this kind of thinking again.

Top U.S. officials and the IAEA agree that Iran is making progress on its nuclear capabilities and warn that some of their activities may have a military dimension. But the IAEA, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agree that Iran has not yet made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon.

The online organizing website Avaaz.org alerts readers that the Honduran authorities are considering a law that would mandate imprisonment of teenage women for using the so-called “morning-after” emergency contraceptive pill — as well as doctors who provide the medicine. An Avaaz petition said:

Honduras is just days away from approving an extremist law that would put teenagers in prison for using the morning-after pill, even if they’ve just been raped. …

Some Congress members agree that this law — which would also jail doctors or anyone who sells the pill — is excessive, but they are bowing to the powerful religious lobby that wrongly claims the morning-after pill constitutes an abortion. Only the head of the Congress, who wants to run for the Presidency and cares about his reputation abroad, can stop this.

Avaaz is asking Congress President Juan Orlando Hernández to “not to criminalize contraception”:

Your proposed law 54 would make Honduras the only country in the world to punish the use or sale of the morning-after pill with jail sentences of 3-10 years. We urge you to reject this extremist law and respect women’s rights, or risk condemnation both in Latin America and across the world

A ban on the morning-after pill was originally passed in 2009, at the behest of powerful religious lobby groups. That law was upheld by the Honduran Supreme Court that year. “The measures Avaaz outlines in its email would further toughen the law, extending it to teenagers and rape victims.” reported World News Australia.

The blogosphere in the U.S., among global health news outlets and progressive sites, lit up with outrage. “There is terrible legislation being considered in Honduras,” wrote Mark Leon Goldberg at Healthy Lives. Eric Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money compared the move to the GOP in America, noting that Honduras also has a prison overcrowding problem.

On Avaaz’s website, 601,710 people have signed the petition, as of publication.

Last Friday, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) challenged his Democratic opponent — Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth — to a debate. Walsh posted an announcement on his campaign website which stated that the congressman would be hosting a town hall on Sunday, and that he “has invited his opponent Tammy Duckworth to join him because he believes the voters deserve to have the ability to directly compare their competing views on the issues.”

Unfortunately, she was unable to attend. Why? Because Duckworth, who serves in the Army National Guard, was on duty this past weekend. As VoteVets told ThinkProgress, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Duckworth was legally prohibited from appearing at any campaign events while on duty. VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz issued the following statement:

Joe Walsh just cannot stop trying to use Tammy Duckworth’s service against her, and he needs to stop, now. Whether or not his campaign was aware of her Army obligations, he now is, and should immediately apologize for this stunt. We should be thankful for the service of all of our troops, not use their time in uniform as an opportunity to play a political stunt.

The Duckworth campaign has made clear that it would like to hold a series of debates with Walsh.

Walsh’s denigration of Duckworth’s service seems to be a recurring theme. In a recent interview with Politico, Walsh diminished Duckworth’s sacrifice for her nation (she lost both of her legs and has a damaged right arm because her helicopter was gunned down in Iraq in 2004) by saying, “What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran … ehhh…. She is nothing more than a handpicked Washington bureaucrat.” Walsh refuses to apologize for those remarks and has instead doubled down. “Wearing the uniform should immediately earn everyone’s respect. It should not, however, earn everyone’s vote,” he said earlier this month.

Since 2006, Duckworth has been serving our nation’s veterans, first by directing the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, and more recently by serving as an Assistant Secretary in the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. But Walsh has been “trying to pretend that [Duckworth’s] service ended when she came home from war.”

ST. LOUIS, MO — “Getting a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Washington state is as easy as buying a new set of tires,” wrote Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur last month, adding that residents of the state can obtain the permits “without taking a single gun-training class.”

The Nation Rifle Association has opposed regulatory measures that require gun training before residents obtain a concealed carry permit. Late last year, the NRA objected to a proposal in Wisconsin that would require state residents there to undergo four hours of training before getting the permit. “It’s clear that the will is to allow people to gauge what their own needs are,” an NRA spokesperson said of the measure. “There are some people who need additional time and others who do not.”

ThinkProgress spoke with NRA members in St. Louis last weekend at the organization’s annual meeting and exhibition. Many supported a gun safety training requirement before obtaining a concealed carry permit:

– “I don’t have a problem with doing the gun safety training or even live fire as part of the requirements.”

– “They should [require training]. They don’t give you a driver’s license if you don’t know how to drive.”

– “Yeah it’s really a good thing to go through, learn all the safety. Oh sure.”

– “I could still get my concealed carry so that, in Washington at least, Washington state, seemed a little lackadaisical. … So I think it is very helpful and should be required.”

Watch the interview clips:

The NRA is also pushing a concealed carry reciprocity bill that would force all other states to accept permits of states with lax standards.

Patricia Maisch, who grabbed a bullet-filled magazine from Jared Loughner before he could reload his semi-automatic handgun during his shooting rampage that ended up wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), criticized the NRA for opposing common sense regulatory measures. “I don’t think they care. I think that the NRA has gone from gun safety and gun training to being about selling guns and making money,” she said.

Conservative Wall Street Journal commentator Peggy Noonan’s weekend column criticized the Republican presidential field just as the primary race seemed to be tilting inexorably toward a nomination for Mitt Romney. The former speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush lit into the campaigns’ reliance on outside groups’ advertising, weak political organizing by some of the candidates, and the base’s criticisms of Romney from the right, all before discussing foreign policy at length and accusing the GOP of “itching for a fight” with Iran.

Lamenting that the candidates were trying to outdo each other on hawkishness toward Iran — sardonically painting the debate as whether to attack Iran on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday — Noonan suggested the primary campaigns seemed to push another war Americans don’t want:

Finally, in foreign affairs the Republican candidates staked out dangerous ground. They want to show they’re strong on defense. Fine, we should have a strong defense, the best in the world. But that is different from having an aggressive foreign policy stance, and every one of the GOP candidates, with the exceptions of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, was aggressive….

There was no room for discretion, prudence, nuance, to use unjustly maligned terms. There was no room for an expressed bias toward not-fighting. But grown-ups really do have a bias toward not-fighting.

They are allowing the GOP to be painted as the war party. They are ceding all non-war ground to the president, who can come forward as the sober, constrained, non-bellicose contender. Do they want that? Are they under the impression America is hungry for another war? Really? After the past 11 years?

Indeed, a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a majority of American oppose bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. More than four in five Americans supporting direct diplomacy to make a deal with Iran, and more than six in ten supported giving sanctions and pressure more time to work.

Noonan is right to bring up the past 11 years: though Americans do show some support for military action, when asked in another poll last week about a potential conflict comparable in scope to the Iraq war — which, remember, was meant to be a “cakewalk” — support for an attack plummeted.

Presumptive GOP nominee Romney should pay attention to Noonan’s warnings: his foreign policy team is stacked with those who pushed hardest for war with Iraq and, more recently, have been pushing for military confrontation with Iran. (HT: Philip Weiss)