Ron Paul recently referred to Ronald Reagan writing in his memoirs of "the irrationality of politics in the Middle East".
The most worrisome contribution to the irrationality of politics in the Middle East is being made by the USA.
If terrorism (against the homeland) were such an urgent problem, we should have seen attacks carried out on American domestic territory. They would be easy to accomplish, as the borders of the USA remain unprotected.
While episodic terrorism (conducted by individuals or small groups) can never be completely avoided, the probability that you or me will fall victim to it is substantially lower than you or me getting struck by lightning; indubitably, episodic terrorism should be dealt with by genuine police activities or precisely targeted strikes (which the US Administration refused to carry out in Afghanistan, preferring to cover the country with war, while Iraq had definitely nothing to do with 9/11, though contentions to the contrary continue to enjoy wide currency).
It is an immensely dangerous and, indeed, vicious practice of dishonesty to blur the profile of episodic terrorism with the demagogic intent of merging it into a threat scenario based on insinuations or outright claims that the world is faced with a massive force specifically dedicated to bringing unprovoked devastation upon the American people.
What is dubbed "terrorism" is, in fact, the resistance of peoples against the unjustified occupation of their countries by American troupes, and the consequence of participating injudiciously in the violent internal strife in Post-Saddam Iraq or Post-Taliban Afghanistan. Such meddling is not compatible with the constitutional purpose of employing American military forces.
In an ongoing series of ad hoc reasons to justify leading a war in Iraq, reference to "oil" is being made increasingly in recent months - only to epitomise the irrationality of American policies in the Middle East: while the Administration does not seem to have a consensus on whether oil is or is not a rationale for sending troupes in the region, to the extent that this argument is actually advanced and acted upon, it should be noted that it is based on a raptorial fallacy - economically, and ultimately politically, too, there simply isn't a more expensive way of "securing" oil supplies than by violent robbery, which, indeed, tends to foster anti-Americanism and destabilise further countries. Pakistan is making notable advances in that direction, a nuclear power and a country too large and populous to be "policed" imperialistically by American troupes, who have already failed and must fail at such efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The reasons added ad hoc in favour of continuing the occupation of Iraq are ill-conceived attempts to correct failure by new recipes for failure. Instead of holding the Administration accountable for its misleading claim of the existence of WMD in Iraq (which can only have WMD, it appears, when given them by the USA, as in the past) and demanding the withdrawal of troupes sent over there based on that false assumption, the political system (and part of the public) keep accepting new rationales that promptly turn out erroneous: tyranicide to improve the lives of the Iraqi (no business of the USA) has failed, the people of Iraq are worse off than under Saddam; introducing democracy (in the manner of a crusade) does not work, especially not, when the invader makes a mockery of democracy in Iraq by overruling it whenever considered expedient (e.g. when the democratic Iraqi government refuses to allow American bases).
It is to turn matters topsy-turvy to speak of a Muslim jihad against the West, when there is a unilateral jihad being conducted (for decades) by the superior forces of the West against Arab-Muslim territories.
Later, nation-building and regime-change were proudly announced as reasons for invading Iraq. It did not work and should never have been engaged in, to begin with, a position on which George W. Bush ran for President in 2000.
With this unchecked "ad-hocery" of "good" reasons to be at war, the only circumstance to stop the frenzy, other than observance of the Constitution, is the (presumably financial and economic) collapse of the aggressor.
Like Nazi-Germany, the USA seem to have reached a barbarian stage, where it can be stopped from conducting aggressive wars only by its physical incapability to continue the practice.
If the official positions of the US administration on legitimate occasions for military intervention are taken as the standard, there is an endless and unstoppable supply of reasons to go to war - ironically, America is bankrupting itself morally and economically in a war that has been producing evidence every day for years of just how unjustified and pointless the American aggression is. The most expensive war in US history, the Iraq war, has produced no benefits whatsoever to balance its costs (a positive cost-benefit ratio, of course, not being a sufficient justification for conducting a war, to begin with). That is why there is a need to come up with constantly renewed rationales for it; keep the public busy with new worries, feed them new threats faster than they can falsify earlier spin.
Our troupes are now marginally safer over there, that is why we increased their number and will keep them over there - that seemed the bottom-line of Petraeus' report, awaited like the ultimate in truth and wisdom, while, in fact, nothing but a report by a dependent underling of the decider. Withdraw the troupes and they will be safe.
On the crucial point of any deployment of US military forces, the General tersely admitted that he does not know whether safety for America has been increased.
Even those, who buy into the spurious reasons given to justify being at war and extending aggression to other countries, should realise that America is economically and militarily incapable of following up on the proposed scheme of "policing" increasing numbers of foreign countries.
(I cannot go into the matter more deeply here, but I recommend our readers to study the structure and working of the global oil markets, to appreciate that peaceful arrangements are the best and cheapest way to secure oil supplies (and a great incentive for unfriendly regimes to cooperate), and that "oil" cannot be controlled militarily, unless one were to conquer all major oil producing countries in the world.)
Vague and unsubstantiated allegations of terrorist threats, including potential ones [let us bomb Iran, for it might posses nuclear weapons in a few years time], presented, however, with great psychological effect, are enough to create a willingness among those exposed to the warmongering spin-offensive conducted by large sections of the media, to endorse a policy pattern that would imply the bombing and conquest of Italy if a number of Americans were to be killed by the Mafia (and when those bombed and conquered were to resist the occupation, they would qualify as terrorists, which (re-)branding would then be used to "prove" how large a problem "terrorism" is).
Mind you, in the past years, American lives have been lost only to the extent that American foreign policy has put them wilfully and unnecessarily in harm's way.
It seems easier for Iranians to control Mr. A. (who is not the dictator as which he is being portrayed in the West) than it is for the great American nation to rein in its own President, who has been pursuing a demonstrably irrational foreign policy of manifest terror, destruction and annihilation of human life.
The great challenge for the American public is to understand the irrationality of American foreign policy.
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