Gyroscopic Investing

All countries attempt to act in their own best interest.  We are interested in Iran because they are ruled by a bat-shit crazy religious dictatorship that has the ability to disrupt the world's oil production and distribution-- which could create a serious SHTF and severe hardship for us.

This whole Libertarian idea that: if we just leave everybody else alone, they will leave us alone... is naive.  It ignore the basic human nature: Rulers... especially dictators... want power.  And once they get power, they want more. And more.  It also doesn't provide a good answer for the fact that power abhors a vacuum.  Which means that: As we pull out (for example: Under a RP admin) ... the Russians, the Chinese and who-knows-who-else will move in to fill that power vacuum.  Just look at Panama: The Chinese now control the canal.

Reub wrote: Coffee, you are a hundred percent right. It is exactly this kind of isolationist thinking that allowed the Nazis to almost conquer the world. Iran must be stopped. And soon!

stone wrote: Reub, I don't understand the comparison to the Nazis. The Nazis invaded other countries and murdered huge numbers of people. If all of the countries in the world were listed in order of despoticness, would Iran even come top? I definately want to avoid ever getting a government like they have here but "stopping" them sounds like an open ended quagmire that will only result in withdrawl after a decade of fighting leaving an even more unstable and dangerous situation in place.

brick-house wrote: coffee wrote:

All countries attempt to act in their own best interest.  We are interested in Iran because they are ruled by a bat-shit crazy religious dictatorship that has the ability to disrupt the world's oil production and distribution-- which could create a serious SHTF and severe hardship for us.

Ten years in Iraq and Afghanistan are in our best interest?  You could make a pretty strong argument that our actions in Iraq have benefited Iran more than the U.S.  

Best interest gets blurred when other people's kids (no draft) are fighting the war and the war is financed by debt instead of the cost being felt by the taxpayers.   If there is no cost to the war, then interest in war will rise.  

The thing that gets me about the U.S. neo-conservative movement is that these guys are chicken-hawks.  They avoided Vietnam like the plague in their youth and in middle/older age are now extreme interventionist hawks.  

This whole Libertarian idea that: if we just leave everybody else alone, they will leave us alone... is naive.  It ignore the basic human nature: Rulers... especially dictators... want power.  And once they get power, they want more. And more.  It also doesn't provide a good answer for the fact that power abhors a vacuum.  Which means that: As we pull out (for example: Under a RP admin) ... the Russians, the Chinese and who-knows-who-else will move in to fill that power vacuum.  Just look at Panama: The Chinese now control the canal.

 

Right on about power.  Our military is an expansionist bureaucracy that seeks power and wants more,  thus there is always another bat-shit crazy dictator to go after.  

Dick Cheney (very sane) thought that an Iraq war was a bad idea when he was not in power.  He changed his tune when he was in power.

Dick Cheney 1994 quagmire interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

stone wrote: Coffee, what about the war in the Congo where 5.4 million people have been killed since 1998 or Sudan?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War

stone wrote: Coffee, my impression is that Iran just opportunisticly supports anyone who creates a nightmare for the US troops whenever US troops get involved in the region. Isn't it possible that Iran would never have considered getting involved in Afganistan had the USA not become embroiled there?

I have to stress how repugnant I find the government of Iran. An Iranian couple I know also share that view. Going to war is a massive step though. The misery it would create is vast isn't it?

MediumTex wrote: One of the issues that often gets lost in the Iran discussion is that Persians have a tendency to look down on Arabs as an inferior people.

It's sort of weird that Iran professes to care so much about the Palestinians, and yet privately you hear Iranians talk about "dirty Arabs" and that sort of thing.

MediumTex wrote: I think that we can all agree that the Iranian government is basically a religious thugocracy.  I still don't know what that means in terms of possible U.S. or Israeli military action.

What is the best case scenario for a military action against Iran?  It seems like anything that happens is unlikely to prevent Iran from eventually getting nuclear weapons if that's what they really want to do.

MediumTex wrote: Hasn't the U.S. already gone down the road of regime change in Iran in the form of the government that existed prior to the 1979 revolution?  Isn't the current Iranian government basically the blowback from severeal decades of U.S. attempts to control the political situation inside Iran in the decades prior to the 1979 revolution?

stone wrote: Coffee, what do you consider a plausible worst case scenario if the West ignored Iran?

stone wrote: Coffee, I guess I think they are just like North Korea, they bluster. The posturing seems a bit like that of Northern Irish politicians. They use a persecution complex as a rallying call to garner domestic support. Getting drawn into their game seems a mistake to me.

Yes, they would come out on top.

- They finance and arm Hezbollah.
- They finance, arm and prop up the government (or a big part of it) in Lebanon
- They finance, arm and prop up the murderous regime of Syria.
- They finance, arm and support terrorist movements that target women and children in Iraq.
- They interfere and influence Afghanistan.
- They routinely threaten to wipe other countries off the map and make a sport of calling for the slaughter of Jews, worldwide.


I could go on and on.

10 years in Iraq: Hindsight is 20/20.  Still, not a bad outcome.  We got rid of Hussein in Iraq, young girls are now allowed to go to school and women can drive. We have more of a central influence in the Middle East to thwart Iran and protect our oil interests.  Hussein is no longer funding and harboring terrorism.  Afghanistan: Combined with Iraq, we now had Iran flanked.  Taliban was driven out.  Al Queda crushed.  The only real argument that our actions in Iraq have benefited Iran more than the US is because the Democrats undermine our war efforts at every turn.  Iraq was starting to calm down and stand on it's own feet, until Obama started pulling the troops out.  

Other people's kids Dead-end argument.  If there was a draft, you'd argue that there should be a volunteer army so that people's "kids" can choose to go or not.

Neo-con chicken hawk argument:  Your argument suggests that only we should be governed (at least on issues of war) by a super-citizen, or citizen-soldier.  That only those who have served some how have a right to say whether we go to war.  Of course, then you'll make the argument that it's the war hungry generals and military establishment making the decisions.  So again... you've set up another false argument.

Expansionist military Last time I checked: The military was run by a civilian commander-in-chief.  The military does not set it's own agenda.  If they did, they'd probably get more funding rather than the cuts Obama is making.

Dick Cheney change of position So, in your opinion, leaders should be inflexible and recalcitrant?  They should always stick with a position even when current intelligence suggest that would be imprudent?