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	Name:	Talullahhound -
	Subject:	But
	Date:	3/28/2009 3:52:05 PM

The hardline approach does not work in the Middle East. It just gives more fuel to the fundamentalists.

Look back to why Iranians took hostages in the first place. It was because the US backed a Dictator who murdered his own people. When we stopped supporting him, he fell, the fundamentalists took over and they took us hostage.

The roots of Al Kayda are in our first invovlement in Pakistan and Afghanistan when we equipped them and supported them, and then dumped them when the Russians pulled out. Just shut them down.

I still maintain that Iraq did not pose a national security problem to the US. The plan was just to take over Iraq on the way to Syria and Iran. They didn't expect what happened in Iraq. We didn't need to go there. We needed to be in Afghanistan and attack the northern regions of Pakistan where the terrorists hang out.

I also maintain if we were really after "terrorists" we would have bombed the Sudan, because they are known to be both fundamentalist and terrorist breeding grounds. The sad truth is we can never win in the Middle East, as long as we are dependent on their oil. It's a very, very complicated political situation.
And I used to be a Middle East desk officer. I've been to a lot of these places many times.