Ron Paul's Anti-Exceptionalism

I'm getting sick of Ron Paul asking us in his tinny, plaintive whine how we'd like it if Iran (or insert your favorite evil regime here) treated us the way we treat them.  It makes self-loathing lefties stand up and cheer, and a disturbing number of conservatives nod their heads as well.

We Helped Our Enemies

Sure, we meddled in Iran during the cold war with the Soviet Union.  My aim is not to discuss the merits of cold war policy, but to bring some clarity.  When we took out Mossadegh in 1953, we did the bidding not just of the Shah, but of the same Islamists who later toppled the shah and brought about the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Similarly, we put the Taliban in the power seat by helping them and their  Saudi-funded Arab confreres chase the Russians from Afghanistan.  We refused to intervene as Islamists toppled dictators in Libya and Egypt.  We spilled our own blood to save Balkan Muslims from slaughter.  These are all actions that helped Muslims, but Islamists refuse to give us credit; our actions have only stoked their anger against us.
 
Our worst sin, according to Usama bin Laden himself, was to trample Islam's holy lands of Saudi Arabia as we protected them from the secular Arab Stalin Saddam Hussein.  No good deed goes unpunished.

It's a chess game, not checkers, and the pieces are not black and white.

Ron Paul asked how we would like it if Iran (or any other belligerent) surrounded us and threatened us.  Of course we would take exception!  But he draws a naive equivalency.  Iran killed 241 servicemen, mostly marines, in Beirut in 1983.  We had no business there? Neither did Iran!  What made their incursion any nobler than ours?  Proximity is a naive answer. We were both trodding ground that was not ours.

Iran's proxies have blown up Jewish centers in South America, a continent blessedly free of such prejudice until the mullah's mad Muslims showed up.  They also sponsor terror groups all over the Levant, Middle East and South Asia.  They threaten to close the Straits of Hormuz, which they do not own and which other oil producers also use to the benefit of the global economy.  We vow to keep it open, for all to use.  There is no moral equivalency between us and them.

We anger them because we're standing in their way

The argument that we've angered the Usama Bin Laden's of the world by trampling their holy ground is also simpistic.  I will concede that I'm sure they are angry, and not just at us, but at the rotten regimes we do business with.  But what's the alternative?

By necessity we have to do business with people around the world, and all of those people, good or bad, will have enemies.  Do we retreat every time someone with a grievance wields a knife or bomb?  Of course they hate us!  We're standing in their way!

If we only did business with good people, we coulnd't even do business with ourselves and we'd have to shut down DC.  You think the Europeans are clean?  Ha!  Besides, bowing to threats is no way for any self-respecting nation to behave.  It will only bring trouble.

Between strict non-intervention and endless war, there is a broad field of legitimate, constitutional foreign policy options, to include patrolling sea lanes and allying with like-minded nations to peacefully put on notice those with malevolent intentions.