Compared to Bush’s war in Iraq, which began in 2003 to ecstatic pundit approval, Trump’s recently threatened war with Iran didn’t find many enthusiasts, even among the most debased and ghoulish of the chattering classes. Not even George Packer, Jonathan Chait, Joe Scarborough, nor Davids Remnick, Frum, or Brooks — all of whom championed the slaughter of Iraqis — are on board with the dangerous Iran adventure.

But not all of the bloodthirsty commentariat has gone gently singing kumbaya into the good night. A few supporters of the Iraq War are digging in for an even more murderous and suicidal war with Iran.

Jeffrey Goldberg, who has admitted taking part in — and covering up — brutal beatings as a former guard in a detention camp for Palestinian political prisoners, has matured from such physical violence into the armchair variety, always safer for the perpetrator. As a New Yorker writer, he peddled, with very thin evidence, the now-discredited connection between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, which Bush used to make the case for war with Iraq. Now, Goldberg is the top editor at the Atlantic, where, last November, he published former US ambassador to Israel Michael Oren’s concerns that Trump was turning “a blind eye to Iranian aggression” and might fail to back Israel in a conflict with Iran. More recently, the magazine published another article claiming that Qassem Soleimani’s death was greeted with “elation” in the region, while most other news outlets reported that tens of thousands of mourners filled the streets of Tehran, many demanding vengeance.