COMMENTARY | One of the more arresting performances at the Ames, Iowa, GOP debate was that of Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a perennial presidential candidate who takes libertarianism to the far fever swamps of madness, especially in his Iran policy.
Paul’s approach to Iran and its drive for nuclear weapons can be divided into two parts, according to a clip from the debate on YouTube.
Part 1
Talk about Iran getting nuclear weapons is “war propaganda” being promulgated by people who just want to interfere in the internal business of another country. There are also a bunch of “phony free traders” who want to use economic sanctions in advance of launching a war.
Part 2
Iran has the perfect right to have nuclear weapons if it wants to. Iran is surrounded by all of these scary countries (India, Pakistan, Israel, America) that have nukes. Why should it not have nukes as well? China and Russia do, and we are certainly happy to deal with them.
One hardly knows how to begin in examining this case of extreme ideology overcoming common sense.
Paul has clearly shown his profound ignorance of the Iranian regime when he compares it to Russia and China. Russia (and the Soviet Union) and China may be motivated by the will to expand their power at the expense of the United States, but those countries are also pragmatic (relatively speaking) and certainly not suicidal.
Iran, on the other hand, is run by religious zealots who see the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a means of establishing the universal caliphate while incidentally annihilating those people who stand in the way of that goal. Israel is the first target, but eventually so will be the United States. Iran does not want nukes to gain respect. It wants them to kill a lot of people. And Iranian leaders are more than happy to suffer the end of the Iranian state and people if they gain the triumph of Islam throughout the world.
Paul’s pat answers to instances of Iranian perfidy are breath-taking. Iran is killing American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? Bring the troops home! shouts Paul. Iran is supporting Hamas and Hezbollah? That’s Israel’s problem, not ours.
Paul prescription for any national security problem, a combination of isolationism and appeasement, would not bring about the happy instance of the world not messing with the United States and the United States not messing with the world. It would bring about the nightmare world of chaos and mass death depicted in the science fiction series by Australian writer John Birmingham that started with “Without Warning.” The added bonus would be that the chaos would arrive on America soil.
Despite the braying applauds of his supporters, Paul has not only demonstrated that he should not be president, but should not have any office of public trust. Thus, it is a good thing that he will be leaving Congress.
Sources: 3rd GOP Presidential Republican Debate – Ron Paul on Iran vs. Santorum, YouTube, August 11, 2011
Iran to Acquire ICBMs as Well as Nuclear Weapons, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, Apr 20, 2010,