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Ron Paul’s “Moderate Foreign Policy” and Iran

Last week, Paul Gottfried wrote this: Having heard both sides, allow me to come down somewhere in the middle. From the tone of its remarks, it would seem that the Iranian government is hoping to do us harm and we are right to keep this government under close surveillance. What Paul calls a “little bit […]

Last week, Paul Gottfried wrote this:

Having heard both sides, allow me to come down somewhere in the middle. From the tone of its remarks, it would seem that the Iranian government is hoping to do us harm and we are right to keep this government under close surveillance. What Paul calls a “little bit of diplomacy” may not be enough to contain the possible threat; and even if the Republicans are manic on the subject, the U.S. does face real enemies in the world. Not every political confrontation has been our fault, and contrary to Paul’s suggestion, allowing the present Iranian rulers to develop atomic weapons, which they’ve announced their intention to use, is not the same as quietly watching other countries acquire them. The Iranian case may be different.

This didn’t make much sense when I first read it, and when I saw it reprinted again in the local Lancaster paper this morning it still didn’t. Prof. Gottfried claims that the Iranian case “may” be different, but at no point does he explain why he thinks that might be so. Since the Iranian government has never announced “its intention to use” nuclear weapons, how is the Iranian case different? Would it make any difference that one of the two sides in the recent debate was offering false evidence? As Robert Merry explained, Bachmann’s Dec. 15 debate remarks were absolutely untrue:

This has to be one of the most blatantly false statements by a presidential candidate since the advent of the nuclear age. No one in Iran has issued such a statement—not the president of Iran nor anyone else. In fact, Iran repeatedly has denied that it even wants to develop nuclear weapons, and so any such statement would directly contradict that country’s oft-expressed official policy, however true or false that expression of policy may be.

Bachmann’s Iran comments had nothing to do with “factual reality.” Why not treat Bachmann’s statement as flatly untrue? Why split the difference between the hawks who are clearly in the wrong and the only candidate making any sense on Iran policy? More to the point, why lend credibility to such people by appearing to endorse their false statements?

To speak of “allowing” Iran to develop nuclear weapons assumes that the Iranian government has already decided to develop them, which appears not to be the case. It also suggests that there is some available means for preventing this from happening, but based on what we think we know about Iran’s nuclear program there is nothing that the U.S. or any other government could do that would do more than delay Iran’s acquisition of these weapons by a few years. From the tone and substance of repeated statements from government officials and leading politicians in the U.S. and elsewhere, the Iranian government has every reason to assume that ours means it serious harm. It is very likely that the quickest way to ensure that Iran decides to develop nuclear weapons is to continue on the current course of sanctions and threats.

Yes, the U.S. has enemies in the world, and current policy is designed to keep Iran as one of them. Not every political confrontation with other regimes has been the fault of the U.S., but policy towards Iran has been unusually short-sighted and confrontational, and the only candidate currently opposed to that policy is Ron Paul. Before we worry about containing the “possible threat,” we might consider that Iran’s nuclear program does not actually threaten the United States and proceed from there.

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