Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy and the Next Great Crisis in the Middle East (Hardcover)

by Ali Ansari

http://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Iran-Failure-American-Foreign/dp/0465003508

It will take time. All of you MTV gen kids who just want it now will just have to learn to be patient.

You are the loopy doopy dipshit.

We (and Iran) were natural allies until... eh, read that book.

Thanks for the Ansari recommendation.

I'm inclined to agree with you, owing to the fact that I actually engaged with you to begin with. I think I may have used the following word only once or twice in my posts here, and it may have been directed at you to begin with and I don't take it lightly: You LWM are an idiot.

The reason is that this is all a joke for you; you have found nothing better to do with your life in your sunset years than to take your ludicrous positions (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you don't actually believe any of these inanities) and heckle people on line. I imagine you in a study surrounded by Time/LIfe books with loving photo studies of military aircraft and weaponry, perhaps a History channel special on some kind of fighter aircraft that won whatever great war you are currently masturbating to is on mute in the background. And there you are surrounded by all of your hard back consumer conventional wisdom foreign policy also-rans, frantically searching on wikkipedia for something, anything with at least one of the words you have just used in your argument. Enough, give it a break dude. Some of us have been in war, and others now have their children in one. Get a life and leave these discussions who at least have a stake in the game.

Iran wants a seat at the big table, and they are about to get it. They deserve it, considering they pulled this off without firing a shot. And I don't want some loopy doopy dipshit in the POTUS when dealing with them. They are not stupid or unsophisticated players and we should not underestimate them or their intent in the region. They deserve our respect and we should realize they have their own ideas about thinggs that may bring us into conflict with them at points in the future.

Do you mean a non-loopy-doopy-dipshit POTUS may have to have a "conflict" with Iran, as in the U.S. going to war with Iran?

Do you mean a non-loopy-doopy-dipshit POTUS may have to have a "conflict" with Iran, as in the U.S. going to war with Iran?

-- -Mona-

You know that war is just politics carried on by other means. I actually think the converse is better:

Politics is just war carried on by other means.

Conflict is ubiquitous. Embrace that and work to resolve them peacefully - until the next fracas breaks out.

The Full Lincoln Letter in context, just for fun...

Springfield, Illinois

August 11, 1846

Mr. Ford: -- I see in your paper of the 8th inst. a communication in relation to myself, of which it is perhaps expected of me to take some notice.

Shortly before starting on my tour through yours, and the other Northern counties of the District, I was informed by letter from Jacksonville that Mr. Cartwright was whispering the charge of infidelity against me in that quarter. I at once wrote a contradiction of it, and sent it to my friends there, with the request that they should publish it or not, as in their discretion they might think proper, having in view the extent of the circulation of the charge, as also the extent of credence it might be receiving. They did not publish it. After my return from your part of the District, I was informed that he had been putting the same charge in circulation against me in some of the neighborhoods in our own, and one or two of the adjoining counties. I believe nine persons out of ten had not heard the charge at all; and, in a word, its extent of circulation was just such as to make a public notice of it appear uncalled for; while it was not entirely safe to leave it unnoticed. After some reflection, I published the little hand-bill, herewith enclosed, and sent it to the neighborhoods above referred to.

I have little doubt now, that to make the same charge -- to slyly sow the seed in select spots -- was the chief object of his mission through your part of the District, at a time when he knew I could not contradict him, either in person or by letter before the election. And, from the election returns in your county, being so different from what they are in parts where Mr. Cartwright and I are both well known, I incline to the belief that he has succeeded in deceiving some honest men there.

As to Mr. Woodward, "our worthy commissioner from Henry," spoken of by your correspondent, I must say it is a little singular that he should know so much about me, while, if I ever saw him, or heard of him, save in the communication in your paper, I have forgotten it. If Mr. Woodward has given such assurance of my character as your correspondent asserts, I can still suppose him to be a worthy man; he may have believed what he said; but there is, even in that charitable view of his case, one lesson in morals which he might, not without profit, learn of even me -- and that is, never to add the weight of his character to a charge against his fellow man, without knowing it to be true. I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him. This maxim ought to be particularly held in view, when we contemplate an attack upon the reputation of our neighbor. I suspect it will turn out that Mr. Woodward got his information in relation to me, from Mr. Cartwright; and I here aver, that he, Cartwright, never heard me utter a word in any way indicating my opinions on religious matters, in his life.

It is my wish that you give this letter, together with the accompanying hand-bill, a place in your paper.

Yours truly,

A. Lincoln

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/handbill.htm