Posted by: Jason T at 1/16/08 Well, Alex, it should come as no surprise that all viable candidates tend to be relatively moderate. After all, the way to win the presidency is to forget about pissing of the extremists and focus on winning the more populous moderates. The differences among candidates, which may appear subtle in the grand scheme of severe right to severe left, are found when we zoom in on the "moderate" portion of the political spectrum. Clinton and Obama certainly have very different ideas for domestic economic and social policy than their Republican counterparts, for instance. On the Republican side of the coin, I am at least encouraged that several candidates are claiming to support a return to smaller government - an interesting phenomenon that has produced heretofore unheard of ideas like conservative candidates who don't want to ban abortion or actively ban same-s e x unions, despite their own moral views, because they acknowledge that these issues have no place in politics. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Alex at 1/15/08 Neither a "republican" or a "democrat" is an "alternative" candidate, because both political parties are simply different sides of the establishment coin. In terms of politics, Hillary Clinton is no different then the candidates running for the Republican ticket, and Obama is nothing more then a very conservative Democrat whose strength lies in the rhetoric of the word "change". Flag Abuse

Posted by: Kyle Minor at 1/15/08 Don, my point isn't so much that Israel is the pinnacle of Democracy and Peace (it is certainly not), nor is it that the protection of Israeli interests ought to be more important to the US government than the protection of US interests (it is not). But it would be a poor decision, to put it lightly, to simply abandon the Israeli government as more and more arab nations speak openly about their desires to 'wipe the Zionist state off the map.' Your point about the six day war is aconowledged, but its analysis is somewhat flawed - Egypt, at the time, had committed what would be considered an act of war by amassing its armed forces at its border. Israel's response was a preemptive strike against what seemed at the time to be an enemy that was preparing to attack it. We can look at statistics all we want, and if what you really want is a discussion of just war theory we can have that too, but the fact that there have been more Palestinain casualties than Israeli casualties doesn't really illegitimize the Israeli defense of its people. It seems like you criticise Israel because it has superior firepower and is willing to use it when provoked - if they didn't use the firepower they have as a means of responding to Palestinian provocations, the provocations will simply continue (see the "land for Peace deal attempted a decade or two ago). History has proven that the Arab nations in the region are wholly unwilling to compromise with an Israeli state which they don't officially recognize, and as a result the numerous peace accords that have been struck have fallen apart with near instancy. This isn't to say that the US ought to 'put Israel first,' and I certainly don't advocate that, but it important to note that Israel is among our more powerful allies, both in the world and specifically in the region. They can be a powerful too for maintaining some sort of balance of power in the region which is at least marginally friendly to the West. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Jason T at 1/15/08 Kyle, I think the author's point is simply that the available Democrats don't have platforms that differ greatly enough from the Republicans. On a related note, I do think it's curious that despite what we often hear about "all of America" wanting to be out of the Middle East, most of the viable candidates desire some degree of continued presence in the region. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Kyle Minor at 1/15/08 A couple points from my first reading of this. First, "strategic national interestes in the region" does not refer explicitly to oil. Keep in mind that the United States actually purchases less than half of the oil it uses from OPEC; the protection of the oil interests in the region allows the market to remain more stable globally and as a result keeps the cost of oil from those countries which we do have as business partners down. With the advent of ethanol (a fuel source of which I am dubious) and cars which require less and less fuel, the next decade or so will likely see a significant decrease in US oil consumption (with, incidentally, a significant rise in Chinese oil consumption as their economy continues to develop). The real US interest in the region is political stability; specifically, a prevention of two political catestrophies. The first would be a successful Islamic uprising which elimenates the state of Israel. The ramifications of this are fairly obvious. Also of great concern is the potential for an extremist Iran to sweep in to control any vacuum of power in the Middle East. This, I believe, is the primary reason why we remain in Iraq, and the principal reason why we cannot simply 'up and leave' as so many people seem to desire we do. I'm a little lost as to where you find the Israeli 'occupation' brutal - or, at least, any less brutal than the aggression enacted against the Israeli state by the Palestinian authority. I'm not great lover of Israel - it was, in my opinion, an error in the post World War II environment to simply 'create' a state in such an unstable area with a known penchant for hating specifically the Jewish people. That having been said, Israel has become among the most stable (both politically and economically) nations in the Middle East, and has historically been among the most willing to forefit its land and its rights in the hopes of obtaining peace. Historically, however, other countries around Israel (Palestine, Syria, Egypt, etc.) have been fairly unwilling to compromise and have, at times, been downright violent in their disapproval of Israel's existence. Many look at the quantity of force in their analysis of Israel's retaliations - it's important to realize, however, that Israel has only rarely been on the aggressive end of its conflicts, reserving the use of their powerful military almost explicitly for defensive purposes. Flag Abuse