Robert Ariail for March 22, 2015

Yep!Barry doesn’t mind radical Islam spreading throughout the Middle East, while Israel actually has a clue what that will mean for them.

I’m a little more concerned about the “Death to America” message coming from the Republicans. We need to bring back the draft so Americans will stop playing games with other people’s children.

It seems to be standard practice for a regime in trouble to use another nation, or a group within the nation, as a scapegoat. Putin uses the West as justification for taking over other people’s territory. The North Koreans use the USA to justify most of their people living in poverty. Iran uses the USA in a similar way.

The Iranians (think Persians) have been around for a long time. They’re not stupid. They see the USA invade Iraq on their border. What do you expect them to do? What would we do? If they keep being threatened, of course they are going to pursue every avenue they can to defend themselves.Someplace behind the scenes, if I were secretary of state, I would sit down with the Iranian leaders and tell them we don’t want to take them over, we do want them to have nice lives, and if we hope they don’t use a bomb on us. Then I’d say, “Oh, and here’s some film CGI video footage of what will happen to certain countries if a nuclear weapon is used on us, or on any nation friendly to us. We’ll know who built the bomb, whoever uses it. You understand, Iranian leaders, that countries that tell us they hate us will be high on the list of targets, don’t you?”

Finally an intelligent discussion. The US needs to figure out how to deal with the rest of the world without bombing them into submission. We need to find a way to live with each other. I to am most afraid of the conservatives in this country who are focused on making us and the rest of the world conform to their version of an ideal world. The congress can’t accomplish anything because of this my way or the highway attitude and we all suffer the fallout.

If it’s a secret, how do you know?

I am reposting this to eliminate a couple of editing mistakes. I apologize.

The Iranians (think Persians) have been around for a long time. They’re not stupid. They see the USA invade Iraq on their border. What do you expect them to do? What would we do? If they keep being threatened, of course they are going to pursue every avenue they can to defend themselves.Someplace behind the scenes, if I were secretary of state, I would sit down with the Iranian leaders and tell them we don’t want to take them over, we do want them to have nice lives, and we hope they don’t use a bomb on us. Then I’d say, “Oh, and here’s some CGI video footage of what will happen to certain countries if a nuclear weapon is used on us, or on any nation friendly to us. We’ll know who built the bomb, whoever uses it. You understand, Iranian leaders, that countries that tell us they hate us will be high on the list of targets, don’t you?”

Only one of these three panels makes any sense.

@denis 1112:So, there were piratical organizations in the world over the centuries, including the Barbary Pirates, who were an impressive force over a period of time. And who were mostly, but not entirely Muslim.Concurrent with these folks were the Europeans, who were sailing the same waters, conquering countries and building empires. We have had a variety of empires, some Muslim. These include two recent examples: the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire.There is no question but that there was a lot of the same stuff from mankind for most of human history.Having said all that, I can tell from your posts a lot about what you think is being done wrong. What are your answers? What would you do if you were the President?

Gee, what you are saying is exactly just what we have been doing under the direction of president Obama (or at least your last paragraph is, anyway). And now, it would seem that the Iranian government is feeling enough pressure to at least begin to negotiate with not only us, but other European nations as well. And now you are telling me that this is also a conservative goal! Congradulations!

Being anti war as a solution shoud NOT be either a liberal nor a conservative solution, but a human solution. War should always be so far away a worst case senario as to only be used in the case of direct aggression from one country upon another, and even then only be used to stop that said aggression. By that criteria, the first Gulf war under Bush the elder as president was at least somewhat justifyable as Saddam Hussein had indeed invaded another sovereign country in his invasion and occupation of Kuwait. And when we went in to stop this, not only did we have the support of other European nations, but even the support of Arabic Islamic nations as well!! And Bush the elder had the intelligence to stop after the goal of freeing Kuwait was accomplished!!

But when his son and his minions went in for a “preemtive war” it was just morally wrong, and despite what some idiotic ultra conservative posters here say, it was a disaster after the inittial military victory. And that was under GW Bush, and NOT our current president, who only pulled out of Iraq based upon previous agreements with the Iraqi government. An action that most reasonable and moderate Americans agree with whole heartedly!

This may seem strange to you, but this supposed liberal agrees totally with the last paragraph of your post! Even though I seem to be the recipeint of the definition of a liberal. Which seems to be anybody more liberal than Rush Limbaugh by some ultra conservatives here. I, like the more thinking conservatives on this site only establish a political viewpoint upon individual issues, and not on either a conservative nor a liberal viewpoint, even though this sometimes makes me seem relatively liberal. In actuality, I take a very positive technological veiwpoint on most issues, and so war is NOT EVER a reasonable option to me!!

By the way, the sanctions against Iran are still in affect, and can not be just curtailed by the US as they are imposed by all the nations invoilved. The proof of which is why we are negotiating with some six other nations and not alone! Let us hope (and yes, even pray to God or Allah or whatever we happen to believe in) that the more moderate elements of the Iranian government will indeed negotiate in a reasonable manner with all oof the other nations involved. It should be evident by now that if Iran really wanted to obtain nuclear weapons, they could have done so by now. Suitcase level nuclear weapons are available to anyone with the money to buy them, but anybody (even the extremists of the Middle East) should realise that the use of such weapons would result in the total annhialation of all that they hold dear. And so, Is not any kind of a realistic solution to any problems!!

Fareed Zakaria, as usual, has an excellent column in the WP, as well as on his TV program regarding Iran/Israel and our “relationships”.

It is long past time for America to realize our foreign policy with the world, all of it, needs to STOP being through a bomb sight.

Interesting the Israeli Defense Minister’s comment on the kiling of all Arabs (Muslims too) as the only answer to Israel’s “peaceful survival”, is hardly cited. His only hero was obviously Joshua.

“Instead Obama curtailed most of the sanctions…”Nonsense. Obama has offered to roll back sanctions in exchange for Iran opening up it’s nuclear power program to inspections that would guarantee they aren’t weaponizing fissile material. Netanyahu & the GOP are convinced that Iran can not be allowed any nuclear program at all, even one geared purely for power generation.Russia & China are not on board with that. If the current process is scuttled by those who don’t want any nuclear program in Iran, it’s only a matter of time before Russia and/or China facilitate a program that will produce weapons.Even if Iran gets weapons, there is only one country in the region with submarine based nukes that can wipe out an enemy, even if they make a successful first strike: Israel. Iran’s nuclear potential is meant to be as much of a deterrent to the Sunni states as it is to threaten Israel. Your path will almost guarantee nukes in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia & Egypt.We’ve already seen this play out between India & Pakistan. It’s sad that conservatives are so desperate to stop Obama from making a deal, that a nuclear armed middle east seems to be a better alternative to them.

To give you an answer grounded in reality. Bush indeed did negotiate our withdrawel from Iraq with the Iraqi government (and credit to him for at least tha tpart at any rate). And neither he nor president Obama wanted out totally, as our military did not want out totally either. But when that same Iraqi government wanted to have our soldiers at the mercy of their courts instead of our own military (something that not only the USA, but all other civilized militaries in the world would NEVER allow), then president Obama had no choice but to withdraw all of our people.

And now the ironic thing is that same Iraqi government would indeed like to have us back to help hold off the ISIL which they then helped to actually create. Well, the heck with them (other than air support, military supplies, and some limited pressence by military instructors) as far as I am concerned, they made their own beds, now let them sleep in them!! Also. at least somewhat ironically, from what I understand that is at least a somewhat more conservative approach to the problem. So I guess there at least is a somewhat conservative answer after all (at least to this particular issue at any rate)!!respectfully,

Actually, the word balloon in the last panel should read: “I’m for the no-state, but ours, solution”.