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You're missing the bigger picture. Iraq is peaceful for now, but do you really think that Sunni and Shiite are going to put the knives away and play nice once we withdraw troops? Or is it your opinion that a permanent troop presence in Iraq is an acceptable option? The fact of the matter is that sooner or later, Iraq is either going to fall under the sway of a brutal ruler, or it is going to erupt in civil war.
I would love to think that there is some diplomatic solution, but you of all people, the hard-nosed realist, should acknowledge that the idea of Sunni and Shiite united is unlikely at best.
Speaking of the big picture, I have to point at the George W Bush's overall geopolitical strategy is an unfortunate failure. Surrounding Iran east and west and then taking the hard line against them is not an accident. The goal in the Middle East from the onset has been to isolate Iran in an attempt to weaken them, in order to secure the Caspian's oil supply.
The unanticipated problem was a resurgent Russia and a rising China. Those two have combined with Iran to greatly weak American foreign power, to the point where the world is looking at a multipolar system, with Russia, Iran, China, the US and the EU all applying their power independently. Even worse, for all our trouble, the Caspian oil is going to China and Russia, so our entire strategy has yielded bloody hands, bruised international relations and not even a drop of crude to show for it.
Finally, you're a damn fool if you think that international Islamic extremist terrorism is going to be defeated unilaterally / militarily. Every terrorist killed leaves behind family and friends that are more likely to follow his footsteps. Every bomb we drop and every shot we fire strengthen this unique enemy, and until we convince the people of the places we're in that getting rid of terrorism is in their best interest, we're damn well losing the war.
 
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Please replace the word "republican" with "neocon".
edit: some info on who neocons are:
+ Show Spoiler +
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On June 01 2008 12:35 fight_or_flight wrote:
Please replace the word "republican" with "neocon".
you're right, if I would I could. The fact of the matter, unfortunately for you other Republicans out there, is that the standardly accepted political platform of the Republicans these days is the Neocon position. I defy you to find me more than 10 Republicans in Congress who don't closely follow the Neoconservative platform (of course there are variations here and there, but very few Ron Pauls)
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You have republicans in Tadjikistan?
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I picked Tadjikistan to show how absurd the dial a country profile option is. It was the least well known country I could think of, basically.
It's a funny thought, though, a Tajik speaking perfect english, playing Starcraft, with intimate knowledge of American politics.
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On June 01 2008 12:38 GeneralStan wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2008 12:35 fight_or_flight wrote:
Please replace the word "republican" with "neocon". you're right, if I would I could. The fact of the matter, unfortunately for you other Republicans out there, is that the standardly accepted political platform of the Republicans these days is the Neocon position. I defy you to find me more than 10 Republicans in Congress who don't closely follow the Neoconservative platform (of course there are variations here and there, but very few Ron Pauls)
You're right, there are few republicans that aren't neocons. The problem with your use of the word republican is that it excludes democrats who are neocons...and I think there are some significant ones.
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This is normally the kind of thread I'd jump into swinging, but I spent three hours in a debate workshop today, and foreign policy is the last thing I want to think about.
But I'm interested in what kind of bloody mess this thread turns out.
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1 star already. I would really hope that anybody who disapproves would come out with something solid. I want some blood!
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On June 01 2008 13:00 GeneralStan wrote:
1 star already. I would really hope that anybody who disapproves would come out with something solid. I want some blood!
First you need people who disagree with you...
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Yeah, I was afraid that they might be hard to come by here.
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I'm a republican and am disgusted with how my party has behaved in the recent years. It has gone wrong in every possible way I could have imagined. Expanding the government, revoking civil rights, and completely destroying the fucking budget.
Having to pander to the religious right and quarrel over stupid things like gay marriage and abortion is preventing real stuff from getting done. It just seems like we have to support the stupidest issues we can and alienate half the country. Now the democrats out number the republicans heavily (according to primaries anyways) and we have to deal with having Bush bring our whole party down.
And now McCain, who I admire and like, is shifting his policies to be closer in line with Bush's current policies. If there was one fucking thing he had to do it was to stay away from Bush and get as many independent voters as possible.
At least Obama isn't terrible.
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I really wanted somebody to argue in favor the Iran isolation strategy. At least somebody play devil's advocate for me.
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In November 2001 everybody loved us.
Now everybody hates us.
Good job, Bush.
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If you want peace in the middle east, get rid of Israel and its dealings and you have less violence and war in the arab world.
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This thread needs more debate...
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United States22883 Posts
On June 01 2008 13:15 GeneralStan wrote:
I really wanted somebody to argue in favor the Iran isolation strategy. At least somebody play devil's advocate for me.
It's a terrible argument. The US and Saddam had a very good oil relationship and along with our partnership with SA, we really have no need to acquire more.
You can sort of use the greedy oil company/Syriana conspiracy theory that the US is trying to block Chinese/Russian oil access and/or the goal was to drive the price of oil up and make oil companies richer, but both of those are unsubstantiated and most likely bullshit. Even though we'd prefer to secure our hegemony, stifling those countries is simply not a realistic goal. Most likely, it's been a series of missteps in the dark on a slippery slope, for both moral and defense purposes. Dumb liberals are obsessed with "BLOOD FOR OIL" but the truth is that the US was already playing that game and getting our share of oil, it just happened to be from Iraqi blood.
The best you can really do is educate them on the differences between shiites and sunnis, and hope to make them understand why Iran should be an ally. Shiites are generally reformists and much more modern, and Iran is a natural enemy to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Their rage with us is not due to inconsolable cultural differences, but rather political anger at our poor decisions in the Middle East (including support of Israel.)
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You are right, its not really about oil. Its more about money. Right about the time we went into iraq, saddam was beginning (or already was) to sell his oil in euros. Now iran has begun selling its oil in euros, and exclusively euros if I'm not mistaken. Do you know what that means? Our country basically will collapse if the world no longer uses our currency as the "world currency".
One of the really big reasons the united states has gotten so rich and had the most power is because our currency has had this dominate position. The sheer volume of money that other countries require for trading (and even using american dollars as their country's main currency) has allowed the FED to basically print up free money for the government to spend with very little inflation.
Now it is at the point to where we are so far in debt that our money is teetering on the edge of being worthless. Countries such as china, japan, and saudi arabia are hold trillions of our worthless dollars in reserves. However, if they try to dump them on the market (buy real goods with them) then two things will happen. 1) we will go to war with them (happening in iran) and 2) it will cause everybody to dump their dollars at once, causing world-wide depressions, catastrophe, overall a lot of bad things (I don't even want to go into what would happen here)
So this is what iran is doing to cause us to invade them. They aren't allowing themselves to be controlled by our money, so they must be taken care of. Thats why they shut down that iranian bank in europe. Even small cracks in the confidence can cascade....and our money is becoming more worthless by the day. Just look at the rising price of oil/food/gold. Everyone is anxious to get rid of our dollar, but the first one that does dies.
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United States22883 Posts
The euro isn't actually getting stronger, the dollar is just getting weaker.
SA isn't going to dump their dollars for political reasons and because they buy a ton of crap from us, and China/Japan won't either because we buy a ton of crap from them. The weakening dollar isn't really good for them either, as its causing US imports to go down and exports to go up.
And jesus, we're not threatening Iran because of the dollar/euro. They barely make a dent in global economics. They could go exclusively to the loonie and no one in Washington would care.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4153/attachmentmk6.jpg)
