Posted on 12/15/2011 10:05:50 AM PST by 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. …
-----
If Paul was a real Jeffersonian he wouldn’t blame America first.
Right, Iran is the bully. They stole British assets. They took our people hostage. We didn’t do anything to them other than exist.
You might want to start a little earlier, circa 1953 when we overthrew their elected gov and put our own guy, The Shah in, but what the hell... I don't have photos.
I never said that Iranians weren't crazy, just that you don't poke crazies with a stick. You leave them alone or you take them out -- you don't jerk them around and expect them to heel like a well trained dog.
I live in LA in 1979 and knew many Persians who were refugees of that Revolution. They hated Khomeini, but none were actually fans of the Shah either.
Not really. They have pipelines elsewhere. And as far as name calling, nasty is the typical Ron Paul supporter. Clueless as always I see.
No, but I wish we would soon, and in a big way.
Blaming America again? No, far from it. How is it that on domestic policies, we can blame the government for all their wrong doing, but on foreign policy, they’re incapable of making a single mistake? You cannot fathom the idea that our foreign policy is not flawless.
Tell me why did we overthrow democratically elected Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 if not for oil? This resulted in the Islamic revolution of 1979. Why did we support financially and military Saddam during Iraq-Iran war? Why did we do the same with Osama bin Laden against the soviet in the 80?
Our foreign policy is insane. We create our own monsters and then we spend trillion dollars on wars to get rid of them.
I do too. That doesn’t mean we have to “invade” Iran. I would be happy if we simply bombed the snot out of its Hezbullah training facilities.
In regards to foreign policy, Ron Paul sees the world like the liberals: it’s all America’s fault.
Yup, those mosks and major government buildings where all the terrorists "work".
Our foreign policy is insane. We create our own monsters and then we spend trillion dollars on wars to get rid of them.
Excellent question and true point.
“How is it that on domestic policies, we can blame the government for all their wrong doing, but on foreign policy, they’re incapable of making a single mistake? You cannot fathom the idea that our foreign policy is not flawless.”
Just to be clear - do you believe that we don’t critique our own foreign policy? Or are you saying that Paul and the Paulbots are the only ones who get it right?
So maybe we should have given Japan the oil so they wouldn’t have bomb Pearl Harbor?? Just using your logic..
Have no idea -- academic question that would require research unnecessary to answering this one.
Before you get too exorcised over who we supported, remember we also supported Uncle Joe/the USSR against the guy with the funny moustache.
You presume to much, there simply is no evidence that Iran is close to building a Nuke, thier missile program is barly able to get off the ground, they buy most from russia, even as corrupt as russia is I doubt they would sell actual intercontinental missile tech to them, First gen nukes by a poor corupt dicatorship, would probable be the size of a house and unusable. It took us several years to shrink our weapons down small enough to fit on a missile, and billions of dollars, resources they simply don’t have, especialy if we drill, drill, and drill and got the price of oil down to $40 a barrel, thier economy fall over dead without $100 oil, as would most of our enemies, i.e. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, just to name a few.
Any dispute between Israel and Iran is thier buisness, while I would verbaly support Israel if they want to take action against Iran, all they should expect from us would be data and moral support.
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