http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266203,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266207,00.html

Even if it's true, they're at most only 85 years or so behind us:

http://www.exodusnews.com/HISTORY/History007.htm

If you're looking for a Supreme Court ruling, you need to go back only 60 years, when the court ruled it was okay for the U.S. to put 100,000 Japanese into concentration camps.

In other words, they may be backward, but we should still try to negotiate with them.

Dialogue and Diplomacy with countries adherring to radically different value systems is not an indication of weakness. By leveraging the combined weight of many countries in the form of economic and political pressure there is a possibility of reaching some compromise.

Military intervention should be the court of last resort...not a Neocon proactive form of enabling Democracy around the world.

Why? To go though the motions before the inevitable occurs? The only hope we have is that the 50% of Iranians who are non-extremist for example, decide they're sick of their current government and do something?

That will never happen. There will be slaughter and incarceration that will make the Tiananmen Square incident look like the cops broke up a drunken bar-b-que.

Diplomacy and negotiation only work when sanity and reason are present on both sides. Unfortunately our current adminstration, some by their own doing, but mostly by an effective media slander campaign cannot conduct successful negotiations.

Mostly, you can't conduct successful diplomacy with murderous fanatical Muslim idealogues.

These times are very similar to the years prior to WW2. The world is filled with Neville Chamberlains.

Fortunately, one country's leadership is preparing well ahead of time for the new Invasion or Poland or Bombing of Pearl Harbor (We actually might have been late for that one). Some people are smart enough to learn from past mistakes while others, due to being blinded by their own perceived intellectual and social superiority, will follow Chamberlains fate.

When has that EVER worked?

Besides, Iran for example is a small component of a much larger scarier problem.

How do you deal with a radical religious movement on the magnitude of hundreds of millions of followers whose idea of diplomacy is "conform to Islam or die".

They have reasonably free elections, and we can hope in their next elections, they'll elect a more moderate government. From what I've read this one is not all that popular because it's too focused on foreign policy and not enough on domestic issues.

What are you basing that on? Like us, they reacted to fear by electing a right wing government. That government so far has apparently followed its own laws. What you have issue with, and I agree with you here, is that they do not have a separation of church and state, and the state rules according to the trendy (right-wing) interpretation of the Koran.

Even if media slander does exist, why would that prevent negotiations?

One could argue that you're comparing us to Hitler, since we're the ones who are doing the invading while the rest of the world stands by. That's certainly how many in the Arab countries see it. They see it as a replay of the wests approach to the Middle East since the Crusades.

Again, we are the ones doing the invading, so your point only makes sense if you're comparing us to Hitler and the other countries to Chamberlain. I don't think that's what you intended to do, but you've certainly handed our enemies a potent argument.

Not quite sure if your last comment was directed at me or Patters...but allow me to respond.

To dismiss the Muslim world as a region populated by a demographic of demons and madmen leaves us no options beyond 'BOMB THEM BACK TO THE STONEAGE".

There are degrees of pressure that can be applied to rogue governments and leaders to nudge them into comprimise. North Korea and Libya come to mind as two countries that although diametrically opposed to our view of the world have backed off aggressive hostility to a degree. Libya needed a couple of cherry bombs to come around but at least there are no US troops taking IED's in the streets of Tripoli.

My point is that we need to exert gradual degrees of pressure in combination with ongoing dialogue to influence these countries. We have not the will nor the manpower to attack and occupy every state that threatens our global interests in spite of what Dick Cheney may think.

If our only response to idealogical or religious conflict is military occupation then we are truly bankrupt as a world leader.

Your WW2 analogy does not play here. There are no current nations with the military capacity to invade adjacent countries such as Germany did in the 30's. Conflicts we face today consist of guerrilla insurgincies that quicky evolve into to wars of attrition. This tactic negates our military's technological advantage and reduces the metric of commitment to tolerance of casualties. An unacceptable balance sheet for sustainable public support. Bottom line is these guys won't stand and fight and the US has not the troops nor the will to engage in multiple theaters of bloody attrition.

No, that was never my intention but rather you assigning you're own interpretation and agenda to it. That's OK though, because that's what the forum is all about.

My spin is that our presence in Iraq in prepositioning of assets right in the middle of and access to the two greatest threats in the region; Iran and Syria. Threats to our economy, the world economy and threats to our allies in the region.

Why aren't the 9/11 attacks sufficient enough excuse for our presence their?

I'm starting to think many of my own countrymen have left 9/11 in the past because their rhetoric regarding this whole Islamic/Western conflict and the attacks of 2001 were somehow our fault in the first place.

I have an issue with the nice, tight textbook definition you've applied to this conflict because there's never been a conflict quite like it in modern history. I would say the closest thing to it was our support of Afghan rebels during the Soviet invasion.

Your description is correct except these guerilla insurgencies are fully supported/bankrolled by some wealthy nations with extremist muslim leadership.

What economic pressure could they possibly succomb too?

The faces and methodologies utilized within the current and eventually wide-ranging conflict are different, but the messages and outcome will be no different than in the 1930's.

Everbody turned a blind eye until they were directly affected or were actually able to clearly see the level of evil they were up against.

By the way, all wars are wars of attrition. The problem is most folks fail to realize we already are at war and conveniently call losses of our soldiers victims of our unlawful occupation.

This conflict was going to occur whether we went into Iraq or not. Iran was going to pursue nuclear weapon develoment and Syria was going to continue to support Hamas and Hezbollah whether the US had a presence in the middle east or not.

The so-called occupation has, at it seems here, successfully been used as a smoke screen to cover for the spread radical Islamic beliefs further perpetuation of anti-semitism in the area.

If your justification for our continued presence in Iraq is as a base for future operations in that theater then there are other locations where we could stage without taking casualties. Quatar, UAE, and Jordan would serve those interests just as well and deny our enemies easy access to our troops as targets of opportunity.

I lost many friends on 9/11 and will never forget who planned and implemented that attack. None of those jerkoffs are shooting at our troops in Iraq. 9/11 is not a predicate for invading Iraq. That is flawed logic.