One of the best moments in the debate at Tampa came after a break, when Brian Williams of NBC turned to Senator Santorum and said he wanted to get him in on the question of Iran. “Specifically, as a last resort, as you said, taking out Iran’s nuclear program,” the moderator said. “The problem with that, so many in the military tell you, is the target list. Where do you limit it — the air strikes that some estimate would begin at 30 to 60 days sustained, taking out air defenses, all of that familiar language the American people have just been through for a decade?”

“What happens,” the senator replied in the best response we’ve heard yet in the debate exchanges in respect of Persia, “if Iran gets a nuclear weapon and the entire world changes? Iran is not just another country, or a little, small country, as President Obama said classically during the campaign. Obama’s Iran policy has been a colossal failure. It’s been a failure because he’s not been true to the American public about the threat that Iran poses to the world. Not just to Israel, but to the world and to the United States.”

“The bottom line is the theocracy that runs Iran is the equivalent of having al Qaeda in charge of a country with huge oil reserves, gas reserves, and a nuclear weapon. That is something that no president could possibly allow to have happen under any circumstances. And when you asked the question, Brian, are we at — is this is an act of war? Well, let’s look at the acts of war that Iran — they are — they are holding hostages, they are attacking our troops, their IEDs, the improvised explosive devices, that are killing our troops in Afghanistan, and killed them in Iraq, and maimed so many were produced, and people were trained and funded in Iran specifically to kill American troops.”

“You look at the ships that have been attacked by Iran, embassies were attacked by Iran. A — Iran has plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador here in this country. It is a long list of attacks of — of war-like behavior on the part of this regime. And to believe that if they have a nuclear weapon they’re somehow going to become into the community of nations is a reckless act on the part of a president. It would be reckless not to do something to stop them from getting this nuclear weapon.”

We don’t wish to make any point here other than that it was the best answer on this question, a thoughtful, coherent, logical explication of a hard-line policy in respect of Iran. It may not be different substantively from what Governor Romney and Speaker Gingrich believe. But they didn’t put it quite as plainly last night as Mr. Santorum, who also well marked the machinations of Iran in Latin America — a point we’ve also marked in these columns in recent years.