All three of the remaining candidates are making insanely dangerous sounds concerning Iran. The two nations that are presenting nuclear threats in the middle east are the US and Israel. Indeed, only one country actually has dropped the bomb on another nation (I leave it to the reader to think about who this was). First Britain and then the US have interfered in Iran for many decades, and the CIA overthrew an elected government in Iran to install a US puppet in the 1950s. Want to find who is responsible for the Islamic Republic taking power in Iran: Look at ourselves in the mirror. To put it bluntly: The anti-Iran rhetoric against Iran that includes nuclear threats by both Republicans and Democrats isn't getting us anywhere. The question isn't why we should talk to them, but why they would trust us enough to talk to us.

Iran is a huge threat to the U.S. A weaker, defeated country, Iraq, has just about broken our military. Don't underestimate our ability to destroy our own economy and military by invading Iran.

Yes, it's all about oil. Our country's well-being is all about oil. We send our children to die for oil. We kill unfathomable numbers for oil. But in another thread, we complain that someone suggested we wear a sweater.

Iran is a huge threat: they have oil.

We need oil.

Now it's true that they can't eat oil. But it's possible to find other food sources -- and given the sunshine in Iran, it's possible to grow food in greenhouses (which is why there are lots of greenhouses in Kuwait).

On the other hand, we are running out of places to get oil.

We can try to just take it... but that requires oil.

And then we would be upsetting other countries who are buying it.

Like China.

Yes, Iran is a huge threat to the US.

And the fact is that there is nothing we can do about it.

1. Privileging Iran as a subject in discussion the way Hillarists are doing is abject surrender to Bush. Iran is not attacking us, has not attacked us, just as Iraq never did, it's just a straw man invented so that we can be permanently at war for Republican political expedience. Prioritizing it within our own party's discussion of foreign policy is either disingenuous or Stockholm Syndrome, as acquiescors in the AUMF adopt in parrot speak the tones of their powerful captors. The idea that Iran is a big nasty threat that should be baited and feared and made much of is a great wedge issue, but bad long term policy, like the shit for brains gas tax diversion.

2. If one feared Iran attacking Israel, that's precisely why one ought to engage Iran. Not talking has no positive externality. It does not heighten threat or deterrence in and of itself. That idea presupposes a weak posture in talking, which is not inherent in talking.

3. The idea that the Moslem world will become less radical if we wage war on wide swaths of it is imbecilic. This is why the statement that we will talk to Iran is good. It is the most we as progressives can do in the current American electoral scene, and should be embraced and not derided as "insane" by our Naderite friend in the thread who equates McCain "bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" and Hillary "obliterate Iran" and Obama "let's at least talk to Iran." The opening to talk can lead to more fruitful diplomacy.

4. Democrats should not be quoting Kissinger as some kind of foreign policy hero. Saw that in a related thread and puked on my shoes. Again, Stockholm Syndrome, and the failure to imagine a progressive foreign policy in which America neither hates itself nor overbears.