Changing My Mind About Iran - And More On The USA

[John Kilduff]

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Get every American out of the Middle East. Screw it. Tell them we're never coming back, it's all theirs, and be well - and if they F with us it will be Lights Out from a very long distance away.

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If such a policy were announced oil would trade at $160 a barrel. There would be a regional arms race and then a regional war. Millions would likely parish. Eventually we would intervene. Such a policy doesn't get us out of the middle east....It gets us in deeper.

Stu

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Why, to all of those things?

[John Kilduff]

Someone said that Reagan took out half of Iran's Navy in one day as a response to their mining the oil shipping lanes. After that Iran quieted down for a while.

Maybe the U.S. should withdraw from the Middle East after taking out Iran's nuke program facilities? No invasion neccessary if what I recently read is correct. The U.S. policy could be non-intervention, but also preventing Islamic regimes from attaining nuclear weapons. Again, no invasions necessary, just air dominance.

This might be the wisest course since nuclear weapons definitely do not belong in the hands of Islamic regimes, especially Islamic regimes with strongly proactive anti-Western agendas.

Everything else regarding non-intervention could be the same, except for also instituting a policy of containment and ensuring that Islamic regimes do not become more powerful militarily. Forget the nation-building nonsense and stay away from actual invasions and ground wars. If they build up too much of a military or nuclear capability, degrade it substantially through air campaigns. Other than that leave them the heck alone. Why let our enemies get far more powerful? An air strike campaign on nuclear facilities (and associated military capabilities ued to defend those facilities) every decade or so ought to keep their threat in check.

[kickabuck]

This is your plan for a post-Musharraf Pakistan? 'Cause you are likely going to have your hands full with that regime.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

America really got it wrong the first time when they picked Israel over the arabs. Such a bad decision. They would be so much better off if they supported the arabs and made the offical isral state somewhere in mexico or something.

[Copernicus]

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America really got it wrong the first time when they picked Israel over the arabs. Such a bad decision. They would be so much better off if they supported the arabs and made the offical isral state somewhere in mexico or something.

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This is a level, I hope.

[John Kilduff]

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America really got it wrong the first time when they picked Israel over the arabs. Such a bad decision. They would be so much better off if they supported the arabs and made the offical isral state somewhere in mexico or something.

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Not when you consider that ultimately the philosophy of Judaism is far more congruent with Western values and philosophy than is Islam. This difference spills over into politics as well, the more so because Islam as a religion cannot truly be divorced from politics, as political earthly dominance is an inherent goal of Islam, which preferential dominance is well-encoded in Islamic Shari'a Law.

Thus by siding with Israel over the Arabs, America has sided with those who are most like us in values and thinking. Any alliance with Islam must eventually be sundered due to the irreconcilable differences in philosophy between Islamic thought and Western liberal enlightenment thinking and values.

Materially speaking, siding with Israel instead of the Arabs is indeed a costly and short-term losing proposition, but in the long-term it is bound to be more fruitful, if indeed sides must be chosen at all. It is sort of like the difference between marrying a poor woman with whom you share most values and thinking, or marrying a rich woman with whom you do not share values and philosophy. The shallow person marries for money (as for oil) whereas the longer-term thinker with a more spiritual leaning marries for love and for shared values.

[InTheDark]

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Get back to our Constitutional roots and get the government out of our lives. Shrink it and starve it financially so it can only be the lean mean rights-protecting-machine it was originally designed to be, along with a few other mundane duties as specifically described in the Constitution.

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Since most every change in government over the last 75 years has taken us further away from the above, I was hoping you might outline as many concrete actions an individual might undertake to make this happen. Voting for Ron Paul is not one of them.

[Kaj]

Thomas Friedman had a great op-ed today related to this subject...

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...since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/opinio...amp;oref=slogin

Seeing the frothing at the mouth for another war by many on this forum (even a preemptive nuclear war), I think Friedman's point is spot on: 9/11 has made people stupid(er).

[Taso]

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Get back to our Constitutional roots and get the government out of our lives. Shrink it and starve it financially so it can only be the lean mean rights-protecting-machine it was originally designed to be, along with a few other mundane duties as specifically described in the Constitution.

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Since most every change in government over the last 75 years has taken us further away from the above, I was hoping you might outline as many concrete actions an individual might undertake to make this happen. Voting for Ron Paul is not one of them.

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Why not? Paul's policies point to exactly what will make this happen.

[ikestoys]

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lol i should have known that this would be for ron paul...

isolationism is a terrible idea that was discredited in the early 20th century. do you really think if we close our eyes it will all go away?

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IT'S NOT [censored] ISOLATIONISM FOR THE 100th [censored] TIME.

asdfewadfs

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son, if non-interventionism means cutting off all our trade agreements and taking all of our troops home, then non-interventionism = isolationism.... son