Mickey Kaus makes a half-joking point about Joe Biden's recent comments seeming to give Israel a green light to attack Iran's nuclear facilities:
[W]hen you think about it, if you wanted to scare the Iranians without credibly committing the United States, isn't Biden the perfect person for the job? I mean, it's just Joe Biden! He could be actually enunciating Obama administration policy. Or he could be winging it! Or it could be just another gaffe. Who knows? The Iranians don't. They can't dismiss the threat, and have to be worried, but can't be sure whether to expect a strike or not. Meanwhile, no credible U.S. spokesman has said anything especially bellicose. That's exactly what we want, no? ...
Strategic ambiguity, I think they call it. Everything Biden says is by definition ambiguous! He's an unreliable narrator. The trick is making it strategic. But the Obama brahmins would be crazy not to try to use this asset. When you've got lemons ....
The unreliable narrator strategy definitely seems to be an improvement on the madman strategy.
--Jason Zengerle