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[quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]
So is it the oil? What has caused three Republican presidents to do nothing but favors for Iran?
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Frankly, I'm not sure that Democratic presidents have acted much differently. I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but traditionally (i.e. before the Islamic Revolution in Iran), Iran was an ally of Israel. The Turkey-Israel-Iran axis was a counterweight to the Arab states. Even after the revolution in Iran, there have been covert ties between Iran and Israel (remember that Israel was smack in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair). Iran served the purpose of drawing the Arabs' attention from Israel, with the Iran-Iraq war being the most concrete demonstration. But, after the US invasion of Iraq which removed Iran's most immediate threat and replaced it with a pro-Iranian government, the threat to the region posed by Iran outgrew it's usefulness. From the US viewpoint, Iran should present just enough of a threat to keep the Saudis dependent on America, maintaining stable oil prices and buying US weapons, but not enough of a threat to actually do anything. Nuclear weapons and a controlling interest in Iraq would push Iran over that threshold. Hence, the current policy to knock the country down a peg or two.
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