I got a request on how I’d argue against Joel Rosenberg, and others who say Ron Paul’s policy on Iran is dangerous.
Before you say I am for Iran, I think the world would be a safer place if they were a democracy like ours. Their leader was a Christian man with strong principles and so were all its people. Now lets take a look of how Iran is likely feeling right now. Lets put the shoe on the other foot for a few moments as they say.
Iran is making more news as they threaten to close down Strait of Hormuz.
The first thing I would say, is let us look at the human element. Does anyone believe that Iran’s leader is willing to die for his cause? I’m sure he is willing for others to die, but he doesn’t want to be killed. So unless it is a last ditch effort to save himself or he knows he is going to be killed imminently he won’t do anything to upset his position of power and wealth.
Second issue is the missiles they are testing. Well they go about 90 miles, when they work, the US has missiles that go across the world in a matter of hours. It is the equivalent of you building a BB gun while the school bully holds an AR 15 and bazooka to your head. Now you could argue that eventually they will have a better weapon that is why they need to be stopped now. I grew up in a system where you were innocent until proven guilty system of justice, I don’t see how you can justify prosecuting someone from crimes they might commit.
Iran has supplied fighters in Iraq/Afghanistan with weapons. Well if we didn’t invade those countries, which I believe most Americans think we should not have, they wouldn’t be doing that. We are going to spend nearly 3 Trillion dollars on those wars. Well over $6000 per US Citizen, so if you are a family of 4, you owe the US Government $24,000 for the wars – do you think you got your monies worth? Are you willing to spend another $10-20,000 to preemptively attack Iran?
What if that money was home, do you think we would have safer neighborhoods with 4% unemployment or with homeless neighbors who will do anything to feed their family? Do you think that 20,000 could have been better spent over here and we would still be safer?
I like to bring out a neighborhood analogy. You sit in the middle of two houses. A person across town comes over and breaks into your neighbors because he thinks they are evil. You don’t think they are, but you don’t really like them so you don’t do anything about it. Now that same person breaks into your other neighbor’s house, because they are evil. You don’t think they are, but you don’t really like them. While they invade your neighbors, they hint that you will be next, because you are evil. What do you do? Do you help out your neighbor or just wait? After all, the person breaking into these homes is much richer and powerful than you are. You are the bad guy and they are the good guy.
US citizens tend to think that we are the good guys and that everyone else is the bad guys. I have a feeling that most of Iran thinks they are the good guys, and we are the people across town coming to their neighborhood breaking into houses. Iran is responding the same way our Government would respond if something similar was happening over here. At least I pray to God that is how our government would respond. If I thought we were going to be invaded, I’d want our Government to puff up our chest and do anything it took to make us feel secure. That is all Iran is doing.
At least Iran, if you put themselves in their shoes, has a reason to think they are in imminent danger (sanctions, threats) of invasion. While we are speculating on what we think they are thinking of thinking about.
On the Funding Issue, Ron Paul isn’t talking about bringing our Defense budget to 0, just to bring our troops home and closes bases that have been expensive and meaningless since the 80s. Let us put it this way, you are a rich politician in the 1800’s. You have a ranch that is Twenty miles from town. Your mode of transportation is a Horse. You might own your ranch and a house in town, because it is a full days ride to get there and sometimes you need to be there for an extended time period. Now you own a car and you live 20 miles from where you work, it takes 10 minutes to get to town. Do you still need a house next to you office? Does it make sense to maintain it and go bankrupt doing so? That is essentially what our military offices overseas are, are homes that we don’t need, but refuse to give up. Eventually you will lose both homes because you can’t afford to keep both up.
Is America safer with dwindling funds and bases all over the world? Or is America safer with a strong economy and strong bases at home?
Is America safer by invading all the countries we don’t like? Or is America safer by giving other countries respect and no reason to fight us?
If we remember China's rising power used to be scary, but through economic ties we have grown closer to them and their people have become freer.
You can also look at the parallels of the Roman Empire and the US Empire. Traditional thinking is with more land comes more power, but Roman fell because it took too much land and the people of those lands rebelled against them. Roman gave them education, sewer, and roads. They didn’t care, they wanted their own leaders. What does the US do? Well we try and give them education and infrastructure. Can we learn anything from Roman? Are we so arrogant that we think we can do better? Are our leaders studying Roman and other Empires to see what led to their collapse so it won’t happen here?
If you are happy we had the Korean war, Vietnam war, Iraq war and Afghanistan war and how they went then Rick Santrum, Mitt Romney, or Rick Perry is you man. If you think we should learn from these wars and look at how we handled the USSR and China then Ron Paul is your man.
Oh and the last time Iran tried to close the Strait, the neighboring countries took care of that problem. Guess what, they would do it again. Not acting is empowering those countries to stand on their own and makes them stronger. Want Iran not to be a threat? Allow those around them to get stronger.
To say the Left or the Right has a strangle hold on good ideas is to say your boss has the only good ideas for the company.
Consider this illuminating exchange between Fox News anchor Bret Baier and Rep. Paul where Paul happily concedes that if he were to win the GOP nomination, he would be
“to the left of President Obama” on the Iran issue.
Maybe for once, being Left of the President is good for US prosperity.
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