Originally Posted by Swift Sword

Frankly, I do not care if Iran and Syria are on the wagon or not as long as we have people in Washington capable of getting them to act in a manner that is pursuant to our interests (and if their crooked govenrments loose sway in the process, fine by me).

Which we do not, and did not whether before or after 9/11 and your so termed "American interventionism". A more direct approach with those countries who understand only power politics is necesarry.

And of the two, Syria is pretty worthless but Iran is gem of incalcuable worth viz U.S. interests in the Middle East and CARs which is why we should only smash it as the policy of last resort.

Actually, Syria's natural gas has our European allies very interested, so while perhaps not direct US interests, this is part of a greater strategic interest.

And do not continue to blame the chaos in Iraq on Iran and Syria because the facts clearly show that it is a result of American interventionism. When you hold the door for your enemy, do not complain if he saunters through it.

So Iran and Syria did not blatantly sponsor terrorism before our interventionism? They were just the nice guys on the block trying to make a decent buck, eh? Truly, you need to face reality.



Repeating the dangers of radical Pan Islam and trying to scare me with tales of decapitating, Islamic boogey men ad infinitum is not much of an argument.

Not till they're dicapitating your family I suppose.



If my grasp of history is correct, the situation you are so alarmed about is a direct byproduct of the American introduced instability in Iraq combined with the failure to manage some sort of dialog with Tehran.

Yup, the thing we really haven't tried is to negotiate with Iran. Iran is not willing to negotiate away anything of value to them. They have a president who is calling for a new Holocaust. While they sit at the negotiating tables, the militants that they sponsor are blowing up American and Israeli soldiers. What do you want to offer them? A withdrawal from Iraq so that their militia will gain control of it? What's next? Asking Israel to withdraw and move to Madagascar?


If it is in the United States' interest to combat terror, proliferation of all types of arms and realted concerns, than the United States is going to have to pursue a policy of fostering stability to develop a framework in which to pursue those aims in the first place.

Stable enemy regimes with goals of destroying us and our allies are not the best bet for the United States to combat terror, not matter how you try to spin it.