Rubio’s desperate Iran spin: In his twisted neocon logic, dodging an international crisis is...

"And here we see Rubio deliberately missing the point. Yes, the Iranians are hostile to the United States, which means their detention of American service members could have escalated into a serious international incident. But it didn’t. We were able to negotiate with a hostile power and rapidly defuse a sensitive situation.

That is a positive outcome. The only way to view it as a negative outcome is if you inhabit the fantasy world in which “strength” – defined as the demonstrated willingness to use force at any given moment – is the cure-all for every international problem. That is Rubio’s position, and he’s arguing that he’d be so tough and hostile towards the Iranians that they would be quaking in existential terror and practically inviting American military excursions into their territory. You can choose to believe that dangerous fiction, or you can look at what happened this week as proof that diplomacy with America’s adversaries can produce good results."