No, he's not kidding:
I think a ground war in Iran with American boots on the ground would be a horrible thing and I think people like to toss around the fact that we have to stop them in some way from gaining this nuclear capability. I don’t think it’s inevitable but I think if you have to hit Iran, you don’t put boots on the ground, you do it with tactical nuclear devices and you set them back a decade or two or three. I think that’s the way to do it with a massive aerial bombardment campaign.
This from a guy who complains that radical extremists run Iran.
No mention from him of the tens of thousands of Iranian civilians who could be killed or maimed in such an attack. Slaughtered children? No problem. Because, in the words of other assholes in America's past, Hunter no doubt believes nits make lice.
He's not the only Republican to lobby for a nuclear attack on Iran. In October, Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner who is the top Republican donor, said in a speech at Yeshiva University in New York City that Iran should be nuked.
Kingston Reif of the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation told Defense News:
“[T]he preventative, first-use of nuclear weapons against Iran would have a devastating impact on US national security and dismember US power and standing in the world.”
“That a senior Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee is even suggesting such a possible course of action is the height of reckless irresponsibility and so far out of bounds it is astonishing,” Reif said. “The first use of nuclear weapons against Iran would guarantee a mad Iranian dash to acquire nuclear weapons to deter future such US attacks, likely convince other potential US adversaries in the region and around the world to acquire their own nuclear weapons to ward off a potential future US attack.”
Hunter and Adelson are hardly the only extremists when it comes to Iran, many of whom will make the most outrageous claims to back up their push for an attack on that country. For example, Michael Ledeen, a long-time advocate of attacking Iran and a "Freedom Scholar" at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which Adelson funds,
claims:
“[T]he relationship between Iran and al Qaeda over the years has been so close that it is difficult today not to conclude that Iran was involved in the 9/11 attacks.”
No surprise that Congressman Hunter wants to start another war built on lies.