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It's about now in a presidency that the incumbant, seeing the eviction order popping through the White House letterbox, starts thinking about how he will be seen by history. This explains the helter-skelter pace of efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians (sidelining "special" envoy Blair en route). But this isn't enough for Dubya, and so this attempt to bugger up foreign relations for the next 20 years:

iran war

We are presently paying the price for Reagan's foreign policy plans of a generation ago, and didn't ostracising Iran and Libya, and cuddling up to Syria, Iraq and the Mujahadeen work well. People not yet born will killed in combat in the 2020s if we listen to the Global Village Idiot.

I'm for keeping Iran down. Of course, having Dubya on-side isn't ideal,but I back his policy, though not his usual methods.

Iran's Allatoyahs are 1000 years in the past, both in ethics and in a general outlook on life. Just think what the Crusades would have done had they had nuclear weapons....

I know just how dangerous the fundamentalists in Iran are, but our policies of the last 30 years have helped keep them strong. Any time an attempt is made to move away from the mediaeval approach espoused by the ayatollahs, someone on our side will say something that drives the moderates back into the shadows.

Can't say it pleases me any, but sometimes we have to speak to those whose views we diametically oppose in order to broker peace. I'm not talking appeasement, but what happened in Northern Ireland over the last decade is proof that things can be achieved by listening.

Aye, you have a point, as always. But I the IRA weren't wanting us to allow them to develop a nuclear capability when we were talking.

When I said I wanted to keep Iran down, I didn't mean economically, just when it comes to 'end-of-days weaponry'. I'm all for them having a good economy, even under that dicatorial, islamo-fascist regime. But I can't see how they can grow when half the populace -women- aren't allowed to contribute by being allowed jobs and paying taxes.

Iran say they're only participating in nuclear research for power stations...........................................................

........This is a country that lives under a sea of oil.

Didn't say I trusted them---I don't. Very suspicious of the nuclear programme. But the fact remains that, since the second world war, events have largely been driven by US policy having unforseen circumstances down the line.

The Domino Principle was the dominant factor in the State Department's dealings with the rest of the world through the 50s and 60s, and resulted in war in Korea and then Vietnam, the latter dragging Cambodia into the conflict and leading to the rise of the loathsome Khmer Rouge; propping up oppressive fascist regimes and military juntas in South and Central America; and tensions between Washington and former loyal allies in Europe.

Economically, it's been a fact for decades that when America sneezes the rest of the world catches cold. Likewise the ripples of the US diplomatic dockie in the pond threaten to engulf us all.

The Middle East is a powder keg, and to allow the John Wayne school of diplomacy to continue is asking for trouble for generations to come.

I forgot what book it was now but if you look at the countries that border the old Soviet Union, you will see that they've either been involved in internal/external wars, or were very heavily armed.

I think it's been in the wests interests to keep Europe strong, and keep Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India heavily armed. A definite ploy to stop Soviet expansion south where they'd end up controlling 90% of the worlds oil as well as massive naval bases in the Mediterranean and Indian ocean. It worked and we won.

It's like supplying your humble neighbours with baseball bats to help protect themselves with the problem family on the street that go robbing everyone. While they're there, everyone is armed, and united against the problem family. When the problem family is removed that uniting factor is also removed and they use your baseball bats to turn on eachother, and you!

People always complain that we've helped arm the nations that we've now got big issues with, but if soviet communism hadn't arisen I do not think we'd have gained anything, nor wished to arm them.

I really do think that all this shit is fallout from the cold war, just as much as American policy.

It's very easy for us to sit back and criticise ourselves in retrospect, but maybe doing it another way would have meant something worse.

Regardless, I'm all for talking!

If we end up with a 'good' Democrat contender and a 'poor' Republican, watch out for an October Surprise where Dubya does start something in Iran, leaving the new President to carry the can.

What a terribly cynical thing to suggest, Colonel.

I was thinking about George Bush and his neo-conservative amigos
Big on tough talking rhetoric ie palestinian state & occupied territories since 1967 but wheres the road map

Makes me cringe with this legacy bullshit

They all do it but what is the point

Clintons legacy is Monica Lewinsky

Bushes will be Iraq