One would think that an individual running for the highest political office in the United States would know better than to say that Iran has no Army, no Navy or no Air Force. And, because Iran doesn't have a military, Iran would never attack Israel.
As incredulous as that sounds, incredulous is the wrong word. Mr Ron Paul, an American Presidential Aspirant, making such statements on a national level news show, leads one to question whether or not the cluelessness extends into other areas.
One can also surmise that Mr Paul doesn't know that for many years, Iran and Iraq were the "super-powers" in that region up until Saddam was ejected from power. One can also pretend that the extremely bloody war Iraq and Iran fought for nearly 10 years was fought with toothpicks and spit balls.
Allahpundit pretty much sums the interview up thusly:
Ron Paul, quite incredibly, thinks Iran has no army, no navy and no air force at all and therefore would never attack Israel. Evidently Paul doesn’t realize the utility that ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons would offer an Iran whose president has repeatedly declared his personal desire to wipe Israel off the map. A couple of well-placed nukes could in fact do that, whether Iran has an army or not. Which, by the way, it does. Really. Iran does have an army. A navy and an air force, too, with an indigenously constructed fighter airplane leading the latter into the skies. Paul might want to bone up on that a bit. He’d do well to Google the Shahab series of missiles while he’s at it.
Paul also might want to bone up on the US military’s presence overseas and who actually pays for it. He’s against it, though he doesn’t even know how many troops we have overseas or what they’re doing or why they’re there. That also came out in the interview. And he thinks the US taxpayer pays the entire bill, which isn’t true. We pay the bulk of it, but we don’t pay all of it. Host countries pick up a sizable portion of the tab, funding everything from the cost of living allowances to the housing that our overseas troops need. All of that and more was packed into an interview that demonstrated once and for all that however well-meaning Paul is on the small government front (an area where he could and does make some sense), he’s simply too ignorant on foreign policy and too quick to blame America for just about every bad thing in the world to be trusted with the power of the presidency. No good can come of it.
The YouTube clip can be viewed at Allahpundit
or here.
