I cannot believe that people here really think that the scum Ron Paul is good for America. He is misleading Americans to believe that Iran is not a threat to world peace. Israel knows, the Jewish people know, and most wise JTFers know that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel and the Jewish people worldwide.
I also find it odd that the San Francisco Chronicle is plugging for Ron Paul to win the Republican nomination. This liberal lefty rag of a news source is now fully on the Ron Paul bandwagon. It is using his statements about Iran as an example of how he is 'good' for America.
Intelligence indicates that Iran is on the fast track to develop nuclear weapons. If anyone doesn't believe that and thinks this is just right-wing propaganda is living in a reality distortion bubble. Iran has clearly stated that it desires nuclear weapons and has made threats against the Jewish state.
I consider Ron Paul a threat to the American people. He is lying and deceiving the public for what goal? I don't know why other than he is a deluded old man or else he has monetary investments in Iran which he is protecting.
The problem that these other candidates have, however, is that their records simply don't lend them much credence, whereas Paul has an unblemished, and unimpeachable, Congressional voting record. Despite the best efforts of the media to get Dr. Paul to flip flop on his libertarian views, he just won't do it - even when the questions are tough. Last night, when he was asked what his response would be to the possibility that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, Paul stuck to his non-interventionist position and said that he would prefer more diplomatic discourse and trade with Tehran, as opposed to just relying on threatening rhetoric and war mongering.
While this may have seemed like an extreme position to Americans whose only source of information on Iranian/U.S. relations is media propaganda, it is in fact quite sound, and part of an already existing strategy. The Obama administration has acknowledged that Iran deserves a seat at the international table. In 2009, he told the Iranian people that "The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right-but it comes with real responsibilities." Iran and the United States also are trade partners.
Furthermore, the Obama administration has been warned in no uncertain terms by a panel of academics and ambassadors that a military attack against the country would be a mistake, and that the only viable course of action was unconditional negotiations. This panel included former special envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins, former ambassador to the UN Thomas Pickering, and Middle East scholars from American universities. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to claim that his country's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty along with the United States. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa against the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.
On the terrorism front, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has said that Iran is "a helper and a solution" for Afghanistan and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq stated that Iran has a "positive and constructive" role in helping the Iraqi government improve security in that nation. Another thing to note about Iran is that it is a democratic country, and the hard-liners may not be in power much longer. Ahmadinejad's 2009 re-election caused significant debate and protest in that country, and it is becoming ever more clear that he is losing the support of the Iranian populace.
We have seen this trend throughout the Middle East in countries such as Libya, Egypt, and Syria. None of this should be interpreted as an endorsement of Iran as a shining beacon of peace and freedom, but it does underscore where Dr. Paul is coming from. Under his foreign policy, countries such as Israel, and the Europeans, would have much more latitude to deal with the Iranians as they saw fit, without U.S. meddling.
The American people have absolutely no desire to engage countries such as Pakistan and Iran in war, yet the government's rhetoric suggests otherwise. Ron Paul is the only candidate that can guarantee the American people that we will not preemptively engage in another war of aggression such as Iraq, which is now viewed as a mistake by the majority of U.S. citizens.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/12/benzinga1854956.DTL#ixzz1Ur2DAcJu