Ron Paul: Iran wants to disrupt world oil supply because we are provoking them

The Right Scoop ^

[mnehring]

In a town hall yesterday, Ron Paul said that Iran is acting in a “rational manner” by threatening to disrupt the world oil supply in the Persian Gulf. He believes Iran is only defending itself from the provocations of the West and told the crowd that if he were president, he’d be “provoking them a lot less.”

“We’re just looking for trouble,” Paul said. “We’re building the war propaganda against Iran just as we did against Iraq.”

Since Paul believes that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons to defend itself, he characterized Iran’s response as saying “we can’t really defend ourselves so we might sink a boat, sink a ship out there in the Persian Gulf.”

Here’s the full video:

(video at source)

------ How would I deal with the threat or the so-called threat of the Iranians, that they are going to disrupt the oil supply?

Well I’d be provoking them a lot less because they’re reacting to the provoking of the West saying “we’re gonna put on sanctions”. We have them surrounded with nuclear weapons and we’re claiming that they’re gonna build a nuclear weapon and there’s no evidence for this.

So we’re just looking for trouble. We’re building the war propaganda against Iran just as we did against Iraq.

And it’s the march on. You know it’s Libya and it’s in Egypt and now we’re involved in Syria, now we’re sending troops into Africa. And also, of course we’re still in Iraq, we’re into Pakistan and we’ve been in Afghanistan for a long time.

And people want to go to war against Iran. And I think they’re reacting to the provocations of so many other people saying that “we’re liable to bomb you because you are building a nuclear weapon.” But our CIA doesn’t confirm that nor does the UN confirm that.

So they’re acting actually in a rational manner because they’re saying “they’re gonna attack us and start bombing us”. They have to say “well, we don’t have any nuclear weapons, we can’t really defend ourselves. So we might sink a boat, sink a ship out there in the Persian Gulf”, hoping that we might back off.

I just think we’re treating the whole thing wrong. …

-----

[McGruff]

Ron Paul said that Iran is acting in a “rational manner”...

I guess it depends upon what the meaning of rational is.

[Bokababe]

IMHO, the Mullahs are completely nuts. But also, our sanctions & threats are driving Iranians further into a paranoiac religious fervor that says if they are going down, they are going to use what they have to take down everything & everyone they can with them. It would make sense that Iran would try and disrupt the world oil supply -- which would hit us the hardest --in order to strike back at us.

We are putting Iran in a no-win scenario -- essentially poking sticks at a cornered and crazy dog, then acting shocked at the dog's response and using that response for more stick-poking. All he is saying is, "Quit poking sticks at them".

There may come a time when we have to do something about Iran, but the first thing we should do is to stop exacerbating the problem -- unless we are prepared for the result of $5 a gallon gasoline on this flagging economy and another war that we can't afford right now, and probable Iranian terrorism here in the US.

Ron Paul's is completely rational thinking on this. Nothing crazy here.

[JaguarXKE]

The man is completely detached from reality.

[haircutter]

damn this Ron Paul jerk loves Iran...maybe he should relocate there...do us a favor...

every day he becomes more senile.

[pingman]

Such vitriol on this post!

No refutation of his statements, though.

The truth is that the US has been dickin’ Iran around since Mossadegh nationalized British Petroleum’s assets in 1953. In comes the Shah, our friend. He turns bloody repressive on his own people, but what the heck! He’s our guy! Carter abandons him; we get Kohmenie’s bunch. Meanwhile, Saddam is next door doing our bidding, spending years at war with Iran. Good boy, that Saddam. Whoops! He invades Kuwait. We whack him once, but leave him in power. After 9/11 we whack him again, and string him up.

Face it: the US is the bully boy in the middle east, in a global quest to assure and control the flow of oil.Turn the table around for a moment. Would you put up with 1/10th the meddling in our national affairs if those shoes were on your feet?

The truth sucks when your nationalist pride gets tweaked by inconvenient facts. Screw the Middle East; bring our men and women of the Armed Forces home.

[Allegra]

Boy, he just keeps on lobbing those nutbar bombs out there, doesn’t he?

[Roninf5-1]

Once again, Fraud Paul blames the US.

This constant refrain that Ron Paul "blames America" reminds of the old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto:

The Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding through one of the many canyons when suddenly rising from the hill on their right are hundreds of Indians. They start to spur their horses forward when they realize that there are hundreds of Indians ahead of them. Wheeling to the left, they once again see hundreds of Indians rising from the hill. They begin to back away in the direction from which they had come and they realize they are surrounded. The Indians had spread out. They are trapped.
The Lone Ranger turns to Tonto, his life-long friend, and says "Tonto, my friend, I think I must say that I have treasured our times together but now I think we are doomed."
"We?" replied Tonto "What's all this 'we', Paleface?"

When was the last time the people that control US policy, foreign or domestic, represented the will of American people on anything? When have they NOT acted against the best interests of the average American citizen. How did destroying Iraq at the cost of Trillions of dollars help the average American? What good did the US-NATO do in bringing Al Qaeda to power in Lybia by bombing the hell out of innocent civilians that posed no threat to the US? How is that moral? How is that American? Why would anyone want to be associated with that? I don't.

If these usurpers in D.C., the District of Criminals, gave a damn about the security and safety of the American people they would have closed our south border years ago. More Americans are killed by and more wealth lost too illegal aliens in one year than to Muslim terrorists in decades. If they gave a damn about us they wouldn't have shipped all our jobs overseas nor given away Trillions to foreign banks. No these clowns are acting for other interests and not mine nor any other American. It isn't our government anymore.

[mnehring]

Finally, a Ron Paul / Iran apologist who actually thinks she makes sense.

[USS Alaska]

Cranial rectal inversion.

Ron Paul deep in thought.

[qman]

Please tell us who you don’t want to go to war with, I could not care less if Iran gets a nuke. That seems to me to be Israel’s problem. Israel has nukes, maybe as many as 200, they have the best trained air force in the middle east, they are building there own missile shield, why should I send my son to war against a Nation that can neither attack us, nor harm our business interests, our weaknesses in energy are easily rectified in months if the necessity requires it, there is no political will because there is no necessity to drill, if global energy supplies are disrupted we will drill asap.

[Bokababe]

Finally, a Ron Paul / Iran apologist who actually thinks she makes sense

I don't give a damn whether Ron Paul said it, Newt Gingrich said it or anyone else said it. It's about logic to me. Does it make sense? -- not just "Does it appeal to emotions?" or "Did my guy say it?"

We've been running on easily manipulable emotions for too long -- it's those same emotions that elected Barrack Obama. We need strategic thinkers, not wild-eyed zealotry. Conservatism used to have a tradition of thinkers and intellectuals who actually thought things out instead of who just pissed people off so they go jumping off of cliffs. What in the hell happened to that tradition? Because it was from there that we used to be able to come to agreement on issues based on principles. Now it's all some mob mentality that attacks ad hominem and name calls to make their point.

We've got to do better than this if we want any sort of future for this country.

[tayper]

Amen

[mas cerveza por favor]

Is there a dispute over facts or just the propaganda spin?

[svcw]

Paul IS NOT a conservative.
I will forever baffled me that paulbots continue to say that he is.
Paul should be running on the libertarian ticket, the question is would they want him back.

[rmlew]

We are pulling out of Iraq, and slowly out of Afghanistan. And it is the insurgencies that Iran supports, which have kept us there so long.
Turkey is not our friend these days and have not been since 2003. Until the recent revolt in Syria, Turkey was moving closer to Iran. So your map is BS. And Iran's nuclear program precedes all of this.

[Bokababe]

Paul IS NOT a conservative.

Where did I say that he was? Not saying that he is or isn't, but I never said that 'Ron Paul was a Conservative".

What I did say was that Conservatism used to have a tradition of thinking, not just spewing.

Sad thing is that Barry Goldwater wouldn't even fit today's template of "a Conservative", which is far more internationalist Rockefeller Republican than anything Goldwater would recognize as his own.

[jpsb]

"It isn't our government anymore.

BUMP!

The ruling class acts in their own interests not the interests of the American people.

There is a lot not to like in Ron Paul, but at least he would act in what he believes to be the best interests of the American people, I am not so sure about most of the others.

[jpsb]

"I could not care less if Iran gets a nuke."

While I agree with your sentiment, sadly the West can not allow Iran to get a nuke. Sorry we just can't allow that.

[Fresh Wind]

Hey Ron, how rational is it to want to create a nuclear holocaust in the belief that only in that way can the 12th imam reappear?

[jpsb]

"Now it's all some mob mentality that attacks ad hominem and name calls to make their point."

Public schools, very few are left that can actually think for themselves and actually know what Constitutional Conservatism really is. For example, whatever happened to declaring war before going to war as prescribed by our Constitution?