OFF THE TABLE. Well, whaddya know — one potential ’08 candidate has already taken a military strike on Iran off the table. Republican Chuck Hagel said the following, according to a Think Progress summary of an April 2006 Reuters story:

�I do not expect any kind of military solution on the Iran issue,� Hagel told a news conference. � �I think to further comment on it would be complete speculation, but I would say that a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option,� he added. � �Iran is a complicated issue. I think that a responsible approach to these challenges is to work closely with our friends and allies, in this case Pakistan, with the United Nations, with the IAEA,� he said. �I believe a political settlement will be the answer. Not a military settlement. All these issues will require a political settlement,� Hagel said.

It will be interesting to see whether he walks that back now that he’s considering a presidential run, or if he sticks to this stance and tries to differentiate himself from the rest of the pack on this issue.

–Garance Franke-Ruta

Garance Franke-Ruta is a former senior editor at the Prospect. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She was a 2006 recipient of a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University.