Ron Paul and foreign policy

Today I was driving and listening to the radio. This is an activity that may become illegal - distracting the driver - so I enjoy it while I can.
As I often do I was listening to talk radio - the Jerry Doyle show. I like Jerry's show; he is a conservative and an equal opportunity offender. Sometimes he expresses strange views, but this is excusable - if you have to talk on the radio for several hours every day you will inevitably say strange stuff.

The part of the show I listened to today featured a guest: Ron Paul's policy adviser Bruce Fine. Mr. Fine very eloquently presented Paul's positions on foreign policy. These positions make sense, at least superficially. The problems begin when you look deeper and try to explore scenarios beyond the simplistic black and whites presented by Bruce Fine and Ron Paul. For simplicity I'll refer to the positions as being Paul's.

First example: Israel.

Mr. Fine quoted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to Congress where he said, and I am trying to quote accurately: "We don't need you to build our nation, we have already built one; we don't need you to built our democracy, we have already built one and we don't need you to send troops to defend us, we defend ourselves". Based on this quote Ron Paul concludes that his policies are the same as proclaimed in the Prime Minister's speech and therefore he is a friend of Israel, more so than any other candidate. He will stop selling weapons to Israel and to it's enemies thus not discriminating and will not stand in Israel's way when it defends itself.

Sounds good, but:

1. Only some of Israel's enemies buy their arms from the U.S. The more aggressive ones (Iran and Syria come to mind) get theirs from Russia and China. Turkey, that is becoming unfriendly, is part of NATO and as such can buy arms from other members of the alliance. Will this "even handedness" mean that Israel will be on its own? My understanding of Ron Paul's position is that it will be.
2. What about spare parts? Israel's air force is using mostly U.S. planes. Does stopping arms sales include spares? If it does, we leave Israel defenseless after it runs out of spares, which will happen within months and until it manages to set up domestic production - which may take years.
3. Mr. Paul sees no difference between Palestinian terror attacks and Israel's defense of it's citizens. In fact he called Israel's operation in Gaza "a preemptive attack" - ignoring the 3000 rockets that have been shot at Israel from Gaza and that provoked Israel's action. Ron Paul said that "if the U.S.didn't support Israel it wouldn't be burdened by the immoral action in Gaza".  He also compared Gaza to a concentration camp. Shouldn't we assume that a Paul administration will see Israel as evil and act accordingly?

Of course if Mr. Paul doesn't care whether Israel exists or not he is not bothered by the consequences of his policy.

Mr. Paul wants to go back to "Jeffersonian principles of offering peaceful relations and commerce to all and defending ourselves vigorously if attacked on our soil". This includes non interference in what ever other countries do. Does that mean that when next time the Palestinians apply for membership in the UN the U.S. will do nothing? If this inaction is because we left the UN I can live with this but not if we are still members.

Speaking of Jefferson: The Marines sing of "the shores of Tripoli". Last time I checked Tripoli is in Libya. This is where the Marines overthrew a regime that supported Berberian pirates that interfered with U.S. trade. The war lasted from 1801 to 1805 and Thomas Jefferson was President. So does a foreign policy based on "Jeffersonian principles" include foreign wars in defense of our interests or just wars to defend against attacks on our soil? Maybe Mr. Paul needs to review his position on this issue.


This brings to the Second Example: Iran

According to Ron Paul we don't need to interfere with Iran's nuclear weapons program. There are two reasons:

1. We can deter Iran by making it clear that an attack on us will end Iran's existence. "Deterrence works always" according to Paul. Let's assume for a moment that he is correct and the apocalyptic wing of the Iranian theocracy doesn't exist. We do know that Iran is itching to attack us, so does deterrence solve this problem? Here is a scenario: a cargo ship registered in Panama (like so many of them are) enters the port of Baltimore and a couple of hours later a 1 megaton nuclear bomb explodes on board. Baltimore, Washington DC and a big chunk of the Eastern US is gone. Do we incinerate Iran now or do we start an investigation to see who did this to us?
   Another scenario: a cargo ship steaming far outside our territorial waters launches a missile from a specially equipped cargo container (Iran recently purchased these missile launchers from Russia). The missile carries a 300Kt warhead and explodes high above the East Coast of the U.S. The Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) is expected to shut down the power grid in the Eastern U.S. and as a cascade reaction the rest of the U.S. will also lose power. The damage can be repaired but it will take at least two years and probably closer to four, to restore some semblance of normalcy. This scenario has been debated and simulated by a number of analysts.
   Don't be fooled by Ron Paul - he assumes an Iranian missile attack on the U.S. But the Iranians are not stupid. They would like to destroy us and live another day, which they will if Ron Paul ends up shaping the U.S. foreign policy.
2. Iran is not going to attack us if we pull out of the region and stop irritating them. The problem with this is that Iran is an expansionist Islamic state. Islamic being the keyword. We are their enemy by virtue of our existence and because of what we do in the Middle East. Leaving Iran to its own devices also means that sooner rather than later the flow of oil from the Middle East to the U.S. will stop. Besides prices going up and causing a serious depression this will also necessitate some kind of action by the West, but if Iran is nuclear the options will be limited. We will be left with one option: appeasement, at least until we develop our own sources.

This post is getting a bit long and though I could bring more reasons to label Mr. Paul's foreign policy as being lunatic I will stop here.

Please feel free to comment.