I really can’t think up any other explanation for someone who can write an article basically wink-winking at the notion of going to war with Iran in order to jumpstart our economy (!!!):

What else might affect the economy? The answer is obvious, but its implications are frightening. War and peace influence the economy.

Look back at FDR and the Great Depression. What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II.

Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.

I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history. 

No David, the answer isn’t obvious, as you suggest.  It’s literally insane!  First, who among us would make the argument that our $2 trillion wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with a ruinous set of tax cuts, made our economy stronger?  Unlike what your failing geriatric memories tell you war-waging was like back in the Good Ol’ Days, Modern American Warfare™ doesn’t involve millions of Rosie The Riveters fanning out all across the country to flood desperately needed cash into hundreds of communities.  Nowadays, the weapon systems have already been paid for and the only place where trillions of dollars get funneled is into the hands of corrupt overseas officials and the coffers of a select few War Contractors (e.g., Xe nee Blackwater and Halliburton).

Not to mention the fact that the only way to spark your magic economy-fixing solution is to, you know, go to war with Iran.  And leave no doubt, when we talk about going to war with Iran, we are talking about the killing of hundreds of thousands of people (mostly Iranian but also American)! 

I especially loved this bit at the end: “I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected.”   Noooooo, of course not!  You’re only suggesting that Obama incite a war in order to make Americans fat and happy again.   That’s so much less offensive than the idea of murdering hundreds of thousands of people for political reasons!  How gauche!

What kind of a sociopath just whimsically tosses out cynical people-killing bullshit like this?

Or, as Matt Duss puts it:

Leaving aside the ridiculous idea that we can just ramp up the war machine, whip America into an anti-Iran frenzy and then shut it all down once the economy’s back on track, there’s the question of basic human decency. Especially in light of what has just occurred in Iraq, what kind of moral degenerate seriously suggests we get ready to do it again in neighboring Iran, just as a way to spur job growth?

The kind who writes a regular column in the Washington Post, apparently.