Why I support Ron Part 2: Dr. No, or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Iran"

Foreign Policy

There are few things in this country that are more dysfunctional than foreign policy. When I watched the Republican foreign policy debate on Saturday, I heard a bunch of 'conservatives' talk like internationalist liberals. For a party that opposes 'big government' and hates government spending, we sure do like to spend money on foreign nations. I especially like Rick Perry's contention that 'All Foreign Aid should start at zero" as if this was a conservative policy. I think that a conservative policy would be "All Foreign Aid stays at zero" would be a conservative policy. Just giving money to foreign nations makes us want to meddle in their affairs. It's like if the bank were giving you money, they would want to make sure that you didn't buy arms or drugs with it...Wait, banks don't give out money. Foreign policy also turns liberals into tried and true fiscal conservatives, as they care about every penny of government spending and waste that goes on in foreign wars. Further it makes Atheists and Christians sound alike, when we talk about the 'Threat of Islamists." This is a crazy mixed up jumble.

What did the Republicans talk about (Not the sane ones, Huntsman and Paul were sidelined as 'Isolationists," we will get to that in a second)

1) The IAEA report and the threat of Iranian nuclear weapon.

Cain, Romney, Perry, Bachman, and Santorum seemed to fight over who could get the closest to declaring war on Iran without actually going over. They kept saying "Read the IAEA report on Iran's nuclear Activities."

Ok, I am going to stop right there. REPUBLICANS are trusting a U.N. REGULATORY BODY!!! That's right the IAEA is called a 'watchdog' but really they are as bureaucratic as any U.N. agency. So Republicans are appealing to an international government regulator. That absurdity should make anyone laugh. I laughed.



But even more absurd was them telling people to read the report, because I did. The report seems to indicate three things (You can read it http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/nov/09/iran-nuclear-programme-iaea-report):

1) Iran stopped its structured nuclear weapons program in 2003.

2) Iran continues some work on a nuclear program which may or may not be directed at building weapons, and may be directed at scientific research.

3) Even though Iran has opened up almost all of its research facilities and volunteered information about activities that IAEA did not even know about, the IAEA still demands Iran provide even more reports about its program.

Go ahead, read the report. Find something shocking. I dare you. I will even make it easy for you.

Paragraph 52: Iran has developed a computer model of high explosives! I wonder if the agency will totally undercut the shock value of this about a a paragraph latter...

...Which would seem bad if not for...



...Paragraph 54: Iran contributes to national and international scientific liturature of high explosive computer modeling.

But we all know that Iranians don't do science...except to..er...create nuclear bombs! In fact I have heard that Iran has hundreds of reserch facilities all over their country with potential implications for nuclear weapons construction, they are called 'Science Labs' and they are cunningly concealed in 'schools' to protect them from US attack.

How about this part Annex Paragraph 4 "In October 2003, Iran informed the Director General that it had adopted a policy of full disclosure"

But there are more shocking moments. Like the fact that from 2002-3 Iran initiated the secret Project 111 (Annex 59), which was an attempt to fit a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead (Annex 63)...or possibly a regular warhead (Annex 63)...which they stopped in 2003 (Annex 59).

Yes, the IAEA constantly complains that Iran is "not in compliance with the Safeguards Agreement." but I would point out that the U.S. is not in compliance with the safeguards agreement on nuclear sharing (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty#United_States-NATO_nuclear_weapons_sharing), Because we won't allow any international government to tell us what to do. But do as we say Iran...or else!

But this really is the very problem with foreign policy. The US keeps asserting its sovereignty when it suits us and then claiming some international agreement or framework when another country does something we don't like.

This is foreign policy. 

So what is a sane person to do? Well we could do what Thomas Jefferson suggested "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."  That Isolationist!

But at least the Republicans have shown their clear difference with Obama. I mean what is he suggesting against Iran:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9R09OLO0.htm

Sanctions and possibly more. Just like the Republicans.

Or we could just lift the sanctions on Iran, Have American culture flood the country, and make them trade partners. If we were buying billions of dollars of oil from them, do you think they would continue to build a nuclear bomb?

But nooooo, we have to continue on the same path they we did in Iraq. Worry about WMD's, sanctions, then a several trillion-dollar war that we can never seem to stop.

For 1 second, look at China. They were a Communist Government with a nuclear bomb. But Nixon went and offered them the hand of friendship and diplomacy. Now they are a huge US trading partner. Sure we have issues with China, but they are not related to them blowing up the world. What if Nixon had developed a hardliner stance against China's WMDs instead of opening up to them?

Ron Paul is not Tricky Dick, but he is willing to engage other nations like Nixon engaged China. That is not Isolationism, it is the opposite, it is treating other nations like equal partners. Not treating them like subjects that can be dictated too.