Ron Paul, Neo-Cons, and Iran (Iowa Debate backlash)

Miscellaneous Current Events
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So, thanks to the back and forth between Ron Paul and Rick Santorum on Iran and nuclear weapons (thanks Fox News, Rick, for the attention) the neo-cons are out in full force. Thanks to the efforts of the upstanding gentleman at TheRightScoop who was kind enough to remove Paul’s name from the poll so that everyone might give their choice for second best (because it was obvious Paul would win in a normal poll), we now have a nice collection of the neo-con backlash…(may favorite was the Rush Limbaugh headline/picture combo found in the sidebar on the site).

Beck: Ron Paul is dead wrong about the Middle East

Rush: “Ron Paul is going to destroy this party. This is nuts on parade.”

Levin to Ron Paul: Hitler would have wanted nukes too

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And here’s a nice rundown of what Paul was talking about:

The biggest neocon of all endorses Ron Paul's budget plan.
Does Anyone post Clips of Other Candidates From Debates or Only Ron Paul?
The Debates
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The Seattle Times offered a nice defense for Paul:

The Republicans are our nationalist party. One way to stir them up is to accuse an opponent of wanting to apologize for America. I’ve never heard Paul suggest that America apologize. I’m not big on apologies, either. I thought it was silly for Bill Clinton to go to Africa and apologize for slavery, which was the responsibility of men who were dead decades before he was born.

When somebody says American foreign policy is wrong and ought to be changed, to accuse him of wanting America to apologize is not an argument. It is a taunt. It is flag-waving as a substitute for reason. Santorum is trying to intimidate Paul by accusing him of disloyalty. It is a stinking tactic. If accepted, it shuts down debate.[…]

Republicans are the nationalist party, the support-our-troops party, the don’t-ever-apologize-to-nobody party. To stir them up against foreingers is pretty easy. Bush stirred them up against Saddam Hussein and against the Taliban. The neocons keep themselves in heat over “islamofascists,” ‘jihadists,” and Muslims generally as if world Islam were the new Soviet Union. But the U.S.S.R. had the Red Army. The Commies had nuclear missiles and MiGs and satellites and a state with control over more than 350 million people and hegemony over a third of Europe. Islam is a religion, not a state. Most Muslims simply want to be left alone. A handful of “jihadists” make home-made bombs—and they don’t even make them here. They make them halfway around the world, and most of them would stop making them if our forces quit occupying their countries. And if they wanted to keep making backyard bombs after we left, fine. Go ahead.

Paul is right. It’s time we quit this. American taxpayers can’t afford all these wars, and we don’t get anything out of them.

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And the L.A. Times rolls out the sarcasm in support of Paul:

Paul is a 76-year-old Air Force veteran and retired ob-gyn who has only been elected to 11 terms in the House of Representatives as a Texas Republican who talks more like a libertarian. He’sknown alternately as Dr. No, for his votes against spending, and Dr. Truth Serum, for his frank talk that some don’t like to hear. None of the other Republican candidates have been elected to anything 11 times, counting schoolyard pickup games.[…]

Talking fiscal discipline, he took his supporters’ donations (more than Mike Huckabee’s hand-clapping evangelicals ponied up, btw) and walked the fiscal walk.

Flying commercial and sleeping in Super 8’s, Paul paid all of his campaign bills. He ended up with a $5-million surplus, a word we don’t often hear associated with things Washington, unless it refers to empty words.

He did another book and has been going around the country preaching his less-government gospel and sowing the seeds of the “tea party,” which – oh, look – elected his son Rand to the United States Senate from Kentucky over the opposition of the party’s establishment. In many ways this presidential election cycle, much of the country’s political talk has come over to Paul’s position – despite the Real Good Talker being in the White House and on the other side.[…]

And then, playing by the establishment’s rules, Paul’s people, many of them new to politics, go out with signs and their voices and their straw-poll ballots. The debate winner may be arguable. Paul’s chance of being the Republican nominee might seem distant. But he’s driving a big chunk of the debate.

And on Saturday, look for Ron Paul’s name at or very near the top of the straw-poll competitors.

But, of course, he doesn’t really matter.

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Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad comes out in favour of peace, against nukes:

Nukes should be left in 20th century – Ahmadinejad to RT

http://rt.com/news/rt-exclusive-mahmoud-ahmadinejad/

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Good link. Bachmann, Santorum, et al, are more dangerous to Americans than Ahmadinejad is. It’s a shame too many people don’t realize that.

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Found another good one that includes footage from an old PBS documentary that supports Paul’s assessment:

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Hart on 1953 Iran coup

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Ahmadenijad and his cronies in the Iranian elite class are most certainly insane religious fundamentalists and if they were to get a nuke, I would see it as a potential problem. But ultimately Paul is right; if we leave them alone, they would most likely leave us alone.

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And you believe Ahmadinejad, Aristippus? He’s just as much of a propagandist as any other head of state.

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No I don’t really believe him overall, but I think his statements reflect the fact that increased hostility and a potential war with the USA are not in his interests.

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Oh I agree. It would be a good way for the Iranian government to go through a regime change, so it certainly wouldn’t be in their interest. The US military would wipe them out like they did to Saddam. Of course I’m not one to say, “rah-rah USA!”, but those are just the facts. It’s a bit of assured destruction.

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Israel will never allow them to have nukes… we just have to not interfer with Israel the same way we would not interfere with Iran. And the problem will take care of itself.

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I watched the video in the OP. I was so dumbfounded by Kinzer’s point by point breakdown of events, I looked him up on Amazon and was convinced of buying his book “All the Shah’s Men” until I saw a response to a review:

Something smells fishy about this book. Another book (which I’m inclined to trust since it won the Pulitzer Prize) is “The Prize” and I just read it. It details the political history of oil and goes into great detail into the Shah and Mohammad Mossadegh. There are major contradictions between these two books. In The Prize, Mohammad Mossadegh is not elected, he skillfully wrests political control away from the Shah and is much more popular initially. This popularity declines when the economy crumbled because Mossadegh nationalized the oil companies. This was because the nationalization had the effect of cutting off Iran from all it’s oil purchasers in the west so they couldn’t sell any of it. It also depicts the CIA “coup” as not really a CIA coup at all. Supposedly the plot was discovered before operations began and the CIA had to cancel everything. However, the CIA did convince the Shah to write a letter firing Mossadegh but this was lost until after the CIA had canceled the coup. Afterward, the letter appeared in the newspapers and the coup was carried out by disaffected Iranians who had no CIA assistance. The Prize also said that since these events had obviously been an embarrassment to many Mossadegh supporters in the nation, the history they adopted was that the CIA masterminded Mossadegh’s fall from grace and his overthrow.

There are further contradictions. It describes the delicate balancing US oil companies had to do between Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to please both of them, promote stability and keep Soviet influence out of the region. Through this, the Shah was relentless in driving up oil prices, taking over oil operations in the country and reducing US oil profits. The US put up with it both to stay on good terms with Iran (and therefore limit Soviet influence) and also to keep control of the oil. It was NOT any source of close friendship and the Shah certainly wasn’t a US stooge, which Khomeini supporters like to say.

The Shah’s downfall was described as a discontent from the Shah trying to modernize too quickly. Iranians rushed into the cities for new economic opportunities but communications, housing, transportation and police were all so outdated and incredibly frustrating (not to mention the corruption), that Iranians were looking for a political change. Many gravitated toward Khomeini thinking their situation would get better once he was in charge. It didn’t. The overthrow had nothing to do with the Shah not caring about Iranians and being a US puppet.

I’ll admit that I didn’t give “All The Shah’s Men” much of a chance but it stinks so much of bias that I’m not willing to do so.

According to this alternative history of the events surrounding the 1953 coup in Iran, the CIA was not so involved as Kinzer leads us to believe which leaves his thesis of this event sparking the fuse for 9/11 all the more untenable. Should I really believe Kinzer?

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That should be a red flag right there. But still, that’s an interesting review. Especially considering a lot of places actually list both books as good resources. Like here, one guy says:

Now that Iran looms on our horizon, here’s a story that every American should know. Journalist Sandra Mackey tells it in “The Iranians,” as does Daniel Yergin in “The Prize,” his monumental history of oil. But the best extended version of the story that I’ve read is in “All the Shah’s Men” by Stephen Kinzer.

Now it’s possible he only read the latter book. But if you’re really interested, here is a comprehensive list of documentaries and videos on the history of Iran. It’s literally 13 hours of content, and it’s from various sources including American, British, and Middle Eastern. I have a feeling that will give you a better perspective on which story is closer to the truth.

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I made note of the same thing. There are a few reviews which try to debunk Kinzer on the same page on Amazon. Thanks for the content.

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I’m not sure how much allowing Israel would be capable of after no longer receiving billions of dollars in US government aid. But I agree that “we” (i.e. the US government) should not interfere with either Israel or Iran. The thing is, I’d then bet heavily against Israel.

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You could have private charity to Israel…

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I would like to point some thins out regarding the false notion of Iran somehow building nuclear weapons that DESPERATELY need attention, especially to the war hawks like Santorum.

The creation of a Nuclear weapon is NOT as easy as it might sound. If we look at for example North Korea, when they exploded their little creation was actually not a “nuclear weapon” that was instead a “nuclear device”.

A nuclear weapon and a nuclear device are not the same thing. In order for it to be considered a weapon it must be small enough to fit in a Rocket, ruggly compact enough to survive a 10G launch entry into a vacuum at certain temperature’s and departure from the vacuum at certain temperature’s. You must also test your product over and over again until you get it right and learn what the correct blue prints are. To build such a weapon you actually need advanced nuclear physicist, advanced electrical engenieerer’s and advanced material scientist. You also need the proper resources and educational training facilities to produce such individuals. Iran has none of the above.

The main difference between a nuclear weapon and a device is the fact that a nuclear weapon can be launched. Where as the device is constantly stationary. Only the U.S.A and the U.K actually ever invented a nuclear weapon. The Russians stole the tech from the U.S.A and U.K and gave it to the Chinese in device form. China, North Korea, Pakistan don’t have nuclear weapons but devices only. The idea that iran is going to build a Nuke is just ludicrous. The feat will just prove to difficult for the Iranians to pull off.

So technically or scietifically speaking Ron Paul has the correct position on this foreign policy issue.

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Iran and Israel are both dogs; let them eat each other. The U.S. should focus on the U.S. Bachmann is delusional to think she can run the country, Ron Paul is the only candidate that could past a sanity test.

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Artstippus: Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad comes out in favour of peace, against nukes:

Nukes should be left in 20th century – Ahmadinejad to RT

This kind of sentiment is why Paul is eventually going to be marginalized.

Weird, anarchists hatin’ on statists at home (that’s cool), but lovin and trustin the statists abroad (that’s weird)

just a little observation from your friendly neighborhood statist hatin (doesnt matter whether they reside at home or abroad) war mongering, kitten kickin, zombie neocon