Sen. Rand Paul blocks Iran sanctions bill

That's a likely scenario, but there's probably no chance Iran will attack either the US or Israel. They are not stupid. It's probably a case of brinksmanship, such at the US practiced in the 1950s against the USSR when we did not know the USSR's actual nuclear capability and feared it was greater than ours.

In an objective, unbiased analysis, Iran cannot take the chance that the West - very likely under the motivation of Big Oil along with the "New American Century" zealots - will not expand the Capitalist jihad of acquisition into Iran. We've been sabre-rattling for so long that no sane government of a nation and culture so different than our own as Iran is can ignore the possibility that the West will massage a pretext to attack them.

It's a clever game. The West has created a scenario in which Iran would construct a deterrent, as any prudent nation would in their place, against the terrible possibility that the West would continue its march through the region. The Catch-22 is that the construction of the deterrent that is forced upon the victim becomes itself the tangible casus belli.

In other words, this time around it will not work just to lie about the presence of WMDs as the US did in the case of Iraq. The US and its allies - principally Britain and Israel, but you cannot count out France, especially after Libya - are forcing the actual attempt at construction of WMDs, dealing with the possiblity that no WMDs exist.

Iran must always guard against any real possibilities, even if they are somewhat improbable. But, in this case, a Western strategy against Iran (and Muslims majority nations in general) as inferred above is far from impossible, and may even be obvious, though most American voters are far too befuddled by the sea of lies we are treading water in right now to be able to think clearly and see the otherwise obvious.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, a functional but absurd casus belli was constructed by staging a Polish "attack" on a radio station across the border. It was done, as I recall, by dressing up a bunch of Poles in army uniforms and "attacking" the station, upon which the Polish "actors" were killed, and the invasion conducted with media complicity. Possibly we'll see something like that. Or maybe it'll be the "ultimatum" that cannot be complied with, such as inspections of facilities we know are involved in the attempt to construct a deterrent.

It's more than just the US, it's Western customers for mideast oil as a group, and includes Britain and France, and to a lesser measure other members of NATO who support the sort of economic imperialism involved but who are rational and keep their mouths shut.

Notice the bots prowling the site? Strange voting patterns.

Your comment highlights one of the more obscure elements behind the reality. The entire situation is motivated by economic interest. That is, Western economic interests covet the resources of others, and their strategies, and therefore the strategies of the governments they control, are designed to maximize their take on converting those resources into cash.

This suggests that the sector primarily responsible for growing instability - probably the path to our next war - has no respect for the rights of other, soverign nations and peoples. The whole "Islamofascist" routine is analagous to the "commie-red menace-yellow peril" routine used in the past to befuddle the American voter.

I don't think he's a broken clock, but even with your metaphor, it's still a better record than most in the Senate.

Yep. Even a broken analog clock is right twice a day. But, less flippantly, if somebody does something good, they should get a huzzah.

Why? To be with people like you?

"all"?

I'm certainly one of those liberals who doesn't want to start a war, and kudos to Paul for doing something about it! I may not agree with him on most things, but I do on this.

It would have made more sense ten years ago...

I was surprised to Post on Both of them today... =)

You're one hell of a freak.

Ya Think??? =) Maybe just Aspiring... =)

I think you have it locked down :-)

I was thinking the same...

In the Senate at Senator can put a hold on anything. All he has to do is say so. It is what the GOP has used to block everything they don't like. It's the same as a filibuster.

Thanks... I learn something new everyday... =)

Every bill has to make it out of Crazy Committee of which Sen. Squirrel is a prominent member.

I was confused why it said the Bill has already been approved by the Republican-led U.S. House.

Sen. Paul delivered a cogent, relevant analysis of the situation in the clip. The sanctions against Iran amount to a casus belli by virtue of precedent - deliberately attempting to strangle a soverign nation economically because we do not agree with their programs.

It's mystifying why so many "liberals" are eating up the warhawk/Republican/Corporate line about Iran. In reality, nuclear weapons guard against being the victim of an agressor nation. Iran has nothing to gain by starting a war, but in viewing the wreckage of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya after Western intervention, it must make sense to them to gain a deterrent, if indeed that's what they are doing. If Iran started a war with nukes, they would be vaporized, as all know.

There was nothing moronic about Sen. Paul's statement, which is clearly worthy of discussion. The use of the term "moron" in the context of intelligent discourse is nothing more than vulgar name-calling.

Blocking sanctions makes war more likely? How?

He's putting it on hold and blocking it from a senate vote.

To each his own. I'm against a war with Iran as well, but I highly doubt that is why Rand Paul is doing this.

So that's kinda good news I take it??? =)

It gives Israel more of a reason to feel the US isn't watching their backs and are more likely to feel they have to take matters into their own hands.

No, it really isn't. See my answer to GavintheMother.

Sanctions are better than war and I think you're right that this will lead to a war faster than anything else. Just what we need...another goddamned war.

You think Senator Paul SECRETLY wants us to go to war with Iran? I think you have been talking to Unimatrix to much!

Sanctions are ALWAYS the first step to War!

Can you think of a war we have fought in the last 50 years where SANCTIONS were not the fist step?

Where did I say that? I just meant that he dances to the Tea Party's tune. Sorry I wasn't more explicit.

Exactly coraj. I don't want war with Iran. I don't want any more war period.

Just how they didn't work with the sanctions against Iraq after the first Gulf War where they basically shut down their WMD program and avoided war until a certain cowboy in the White House decided to start a war of choice against those non-existent WMD. Get your facts straight and then come back to the discussion.

Name a war we have fought in the last 50 years that we did not lay SANCTIONS on the Country first? I will go better than that and say 70 years because the Sanctions/Blockade of the Mainland of Japan was the primary reason for the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor.

Some people learn lessons from history, and some do not.

Oh, I don't know, how about Korea and Vietnam just for two which were both in full force before we ever interjected ourselves into the fighting on our own accord. Neither country were experiencing any sanctions we had imposed at the time. I'm sure I could find a couple others at least. The greater point is, that Iraq proved that the sanctions worked and Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld/Kristol and company started a fictitious war based on lies. Have a nice day.

Vietnam.

I agree with your take on it. Ron Paul and Rand Paul are motivated by one thing only- less government spending so their taxes go down and they can pile up more money, no matter what happens to America or the rest of the world. They are selfish and stupid.

What about all the wars that DIDN'T happen because of sanctions? And I thought this wasn't about preventing war but about preventing getting blown up by a nuclear bomb if we let religious radicals develop one. Sorry, let me translate that into GOPspeak for you: Noo-cyoo-lar.

Some extrapolate bizarre lessons from history, we call them Paulbots.

It is pretty said when simply doing what your puppet masters tell you to do qualifies as great oratory. Be careful about what words you use to describe them....or you will be accused of "vulgar name calling" like I was. There are some pretty thin skins around here. Thumbs up for your courage.

LOL!!! Just what I was thinking... =)

LOL! "Bagga, please..."

A reasonable person could disagree with the Paul's on a lot of things, but if you disagree with them on War & Civil Liberties and CLAIM to be a Progressive/Liberal then in reality you are just a HATER!

They seem to be the news today... =))=

Possibly not. The way to keep Iran from going nuclear is to guarantee their security and freedom from outside aggression. Do you ever wonder why the USA is so obsessed with meddling in the affairs of soverign nations that do not actually threaten us at all? Do you recall the Secretary General of the UN calling the US attack on Iraq an "illegal" war? Did you see somewhere that WMDs actually were found in Iraq? These are questions the governments of nations other than the USA are asking themselves.

The sanctions may well be a means of goading Iran into a reaction to allow a war and avoid negotiating with them as between soverign nations. At least, that is probably what they will have amounted to when the region erupts in another orgy of massacre upon Western intervention.

Ahmadinejad openly admits he is less powerful than the mullahs. This is not the time for an isolationist policy.

It is not isolationism to eschew the use of war, and the accompanying slaughter of innocents, as a mere economic tool.