Anti-war fringe group Code Pink recently used a time-honored tactic of war against a New York congressman: a naval blockade.

Clad in pink and chanting with bullhorns at an early hour, the "armada" of protesters in canoes and rafts amassed at a Washington, D.C., marina to protest at the house boat of Democratic Rep. Gary Ackerman.

Why? Because he's pro-war? No.

Because he's pro-sanctions, particularly with regard to the terrorist-supporting regime in Iran.

"This is what we're hoping for! No more sanctions, no more war!" they chanted.

Hey, we hope for that too. We also hope for a white Christmas, but we know the odds of that in good old Augusta, Ga.

The irony of all this, which is totally lost on the Code Pink crowd, is that sanctions are an attempt to prevent war. They are a peaceful means of averting a dangerous situation -- such as, oh, we don't know, like maybe Iran building nuclear weapons that are then used without provocation to wipe Israel off the map (which the Iranian president has promised will happen) and smuggled to terrorists for use on American soil (which you can pretty much count on).

As much as we all hope for no more sanctions and no more war and for snow on Dec. 25, it's more important to be realistic and actually work against war. One of the ways of doing that is to get like-minded souls in other countries to agree to join together and put diplomatic and economic pressure on a country like Iran to prevent it from seeking nuclear weapons.

Contrary to the mindless sing-songs of Code Pink, you have to do more than hope for the absence of war. You have to work toward peace. Sometimes, when the other side is unwilling to do so, you have to use peaceful diplomatic means to coerce cooperation out of them. This is one of those times.

These well-meaning ladies of the pink boa are hopelessly misguided if they think showing up early in the morning at a Washington marina to harass a mostly like-minded congressman is "waging peace." It's not. It's throwing a tantrum. And like most tantrums, it's irrational.

You don't wage peace by putting on pink and hoping for the best as you carol through the neighborhood. You wake up in the real world, you assess your adversary and you find whatever peaceful strategy you can to either settle a dispute or force a settlement. And you don't force it through cute slogans and bullhorns.

The world must drown out the babblings of the terminally naive and unite in strength to make it clear to Iran that its aggressions toward Israel will not be tolerated, and that it cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

Unless our friends in pink want to jump straight to war, they ought to give sanctions a chance first.