<p>I’m not sure if it really does make a big difference when you’re talking about nuclear weapons, Rorosen. As Condoleeza Rice said: “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” And that may be where the Bush Administration erred. You’re right about the distinction: Americans will support a war against an imminent threat, but we’re a little iffy about a potential threat. That’s why the sense of being bamboozled over the Iraq war has become pretty widespread. Whatever legitimate reasons might have actually supported going to war, the reasons that were actually sold to the American people turned out to be phony. (That doesn’t mean they were “lies”, of course, just to tie into my thread tangent with Driver and Fundingfather about whether there was a “shred” or “scintilla” of evidence that the Bush Administration 'lied".)</p>