Republican war-mongering

So St. John McCain, who never met a foreign policy situation he didn’t think could be improved by inserting US military force into it, is now calling for air strikes against Syria. Three of the four candidates for the Republican nomination to be President want to threaten Iran (Ron Paul is a non-interventionist). Comically, Romney in particular wants to do the following:

“This is a president who has failed to put in place crippling sanctions against Iran. He’s also failed to communicate that military options are on the table and in fact in our hand. And that it’s unacceptable to America for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I will have those military options, I will take those crippling sanctions and put them in place, and I will speak out to the Iranian people about the peril of them becoming nuclear.”

Apparently Mitt doesn’t read the papers or watch television. President Obama has done all of those things, and he told the Israel lobby group AIPAC exactly that on the same day Romney said he had done none of them.

Sanctions are continuing to increase, and this July — thanks to our diplomatic coordination — a European ban on Iranian oil imports will take hold.

[snip]

I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. (Applause.) That includes all elements of American power: A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.

I don’t know what it is that the Republican party feeds its politicians, but apparently it contains a particular pro-war protein. You’d think the past 11 years of Americans fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq would have taught them a little caution, but evidently not.

It’s astonishing.

2 Comments

  1. You know, I’m so tired of all this. What’s going on in the Middle East is the same sectarian and tribal warfare that they’ve been fighting for a thousand years. We should never have gone in there into Iraq in the first place. And now that President Obama has gotten rid of Bin Laden, we should get out of Afghanistan with all due speed.

    What’s going on in Syria is not worth the blood of a single American soldier. I’m sorry that so many Syrians are being killed and wounded there, but they have to work these things out themselves. We’re seeing how the Shia and Sunni sects react to each other in Iraq and it will undoubtedly get worse. But we can’t solve their problems. We’ve worn out our “welcome” in Afghanistan. It’s time to come home – all the way home.

    (Phew, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. It’s been nagging at me ever since the Repubs started this whole candidate farce.)

  2. Thank you, IllanoyGal, I feel the same way. And they’re all ranting about keeping Iran from getting a nuke – what, exactly do you guys plan to do? Invade? See how well that worked in Iraq and Afghanistan? When we invade we unite EVERYBODY against us on the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle – and when we leave they’ll all fight each other again.

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