What you get from listening to Medved's sound bites is agenda-driven misinformation.  What you get from reading the congressional record is the actual well-reasoned argument from Ron Paul:

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose any move to initiate further sanctions on Iran. Sanctions are acts of war, and expanding sanctions on Iran serves no purpose other than preparing the American people for an eventual attack on Iran. This is the same pattern we saw in the run up to the war on Iraq: Congress passes legislation calling for regime change, sanctions are imposed, and eventually we are told that only an attack will solve the problem. We should expect the same tragic result if we continue down this path. I urge my colleagues to reconsider.

I oppose economic sanctions for two very simple reasons. First, they don't work as effective foreign policy. Time after time, from Cuba to China to Iraq, we have failed to unseat despotic leaders or change their policies by refusing to trade with the people of those nations. If anything, the anti-American sentiment aroused by sanctions often strengthens the popularity of such leaders, who use America as a convenient scapegoat to divert attention from their own tyranny. History clearly shows that free and open trade does far more to liberalize oppressive governments than trade wars. Economic freedom and political freedom are inextricably linked--when people get a taste of goods and information from abroad, they are less likely to tolerate a closed society at home. So sanctions mostly harm innocent citizens and do nothing to displace the governments we claim as enemies.

Second, sanctions simply hurt American industries, particularly agriculture. Every market we close to our nation's farmers is a market exploited by foreign farmers. China, Russia, the Middle East, North Korea, and Cuba all represent huge markets for our farm products, yet many in Congress favor current or proposed trade restrictions that prevent our farmers from selling to the billions of people in these areas.

We must keep in mind that Iran has still not been found in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Furthermore, much of the information regarding Iran's nuclear program is coming to us via thoroughly discredited sources like the MeK, a fanatical cult that is on our State Department's terror list. Additionally, the same discredited neo-conservatives who pushed us into the Iraq war are making similarly exaggerated claims against Iran. How often do these "experts" have to be proven wrong before we start to question their credibility?

It is said that we non-interventionists are somehow "isolationists" because we don't want to interfere in the affairs of foreign nations. But the real isolationists are those who demand that we isolate certain peoples overseas because we disagree with the policies of their leaders. The best way to avoid war, to promote American values, and to spread real freedom and liberty is to engage in trade and contacts with the rest of the world as broadly as possible.

I urge my colleagues to reconsider this counterproductive and dangerous move toward further sanctions on Iran.

Ron Paul is this country's best hope for true leadership in our terror-filled world.

Okay... NOW I have this phrase going around in my head, sung to the tune of "follow the prophet"... Thanks Coco...

TitusTodd wrote:

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While Ron Paul has some good points about sanctions, they are not acts of war.  What does he suggest we do to deter a nuclear Iran?  He's got nothin'.

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I think Iran is nothing but trouble.  What do you suggest?

I agree that sanctions won't work if China and Russia don't support them. There's simply too much money involved elsewise. I think a regime change is necessary for Iran in the very least. The Ayatola won't even have anything to do with this Pres's radical position on the end of the world and the (b)millions that must die in order to bring to pass Allah's will. Someone like that cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, it would radicalize the whole middle east. Maybe what we should pray for is a terrorist nuke to go off in China first. Then maybe they'll understand the seriety of their enemy, but sadly those who will be targetted first have already died by the millions in deathcamps...

--Ray

Ron Paul is not, of course, perfect. But there is no current candidate that is as supportive of the Constitution as he is. Foreign issues are, of course, very important. But do we have any hope of solving them until we get our own house in order? Iran could deal us a huge blow just by shutting down oil shipments in the gulf (which they are already ready to do). But we have our hands tied in the US utilizing known oil reserves. Any of the measures proposed against Iran, whether they be economic, political, or military will fail as long as our government here is not working.

I know some of you guys are big Ron Paul supporters. Much of his platform I like but his foreign policy is so different from where I think we should be that he loses my support. In my list of "must haves" for candidates, foreign policy is at the top. Yes, our own house needs to be put in order but when you have thousands of jihadists out there ready to kill us and wipe Israel off the map in the name of radical Islam, I just don't see how his approach will make this work. Frankly, I'm at the point where I want someone to fight this war to win and who is willing to send a strong signal to this Islamofacists that their days are only numbered by how long it takes to re-arm a F-117!

You are right in that even if Ron Paul is elected he will not turn things around immediately. And you are also right that we cannot ignore foreign policy while we are getting our own house in order.
However, Ron Paul's policy on Iran is actually good. This thread was started to discuss him voting against economic sanctions on Iran. That was a correct move, since they wouldn't work anyway. At best, it would yet something else done to convince us that government is working on the problem, while US businesses also suffer.
Is there anything that we can do to stop Iran from becoming nuclear at this point? I think that a military solution would be a fiasco. Look at how badly the Iraq war has been fought. If we had done it correctly, we would have already achieved our objectives and sent our soldiers home. We don't have the will for a political solution. Heck, the Iranian president was receiving applause for almost all his statements at Columbia University. Economic sanctions would only work if Russian and China were fully onboard and the sanctions were handled honestly (unlike the Iraqi oil for food scam).
I don't think that we can stop Iran from becoming nuclear given the realities of politics today. So the best we can do is damage control.
Given that, let's vote Ron Paul in. He'll get us on the road to getting healthy politically. Plus, I really like a lot of what he has to say on foreign policy. We run into a lot of problems trying to be the world's policeman.

I think imposing sanctions is the first step to war. Even if they're inneffective (which they are) they are necessary for the global stage... we tried to warn them first... if they don't take the first clue, maybe they'll take the next warning... etc...

--Ray

arbilad wrote:

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BTW, if we do anything against Iran, they can effectively close down the gulf of Hormuz, which would basically cut off all oil shipments from the gulf.

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They sure could with nukes.  Without them though my money's on the U.S. Navy.

Um... me no likey nukes... ftr, I don't think extra armor on Humvees will help our troops in the case of a nuclear iran.

--Ray

When Iran becomes nuke capable (and that's more than just posessing the fissile material--they have to have an effective delivery system, and that's still some years away)

Iran most likely has missiles that can reach our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Israel. They are a lot closer to being able to deliver than is comfortable. There is also the danger of dirty bombs that use terrorists as a delivery system.

TitusTodd wrote:

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Iran most likely has missiles that can reach our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Israel. They are a lot closer to being able to deliver than is comfortable. There is also the danger of dirty bombs that use terrorists as a delivery system.

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Undoubtedly they do.  They have the No-dong and Taepo-dong systems they purchased from North Korea and a scaled-down Scud variant.  But weaponeering a deliverable nuclear payload is infinitely more complex than strapping a few kilos of enriched uranium on top of missile designed for conventional warheads.  That's the link they're missing.  That's the link that so far the nuclear powers-that-be have denied Iran. And they're still years away from developing that capability on their own.

With Iraq, we had satellite imagery and other intel that indicated Iraq had precursors to chem weapons.  We relied on questionable humint (human intelligence--covert sources) to "fill in the gaps." The political pressure on the analysis prompted too many leaps. We now know how mistaken we were on Iraq's WMD capabilities.  I see us making some of those same mistakes with Iran in yielding to political pressure for action, specifically regime change.

Again, this is the Mossad's back yard.  We should take our cues from them.

I've been thinking some more about Iran developing nukes.  We couldn't stop the former USSR from developing them, so we adopted MAD (mutually assured destruction) as our response and deployed systems in Europe.

I don't think MAD is a good option for Iran. But with N Korea and China still supplying weapons and technology to Iran, I don't think we'll be able to stop Iran from developing or acquiring nukes over the next several years. Perhaps our best response is a missile defense shield for the Persian Gulf. I imagine several oil-rich countries would be interested in purchasing such systems from our defense contractors.  And we now have systems that can detect a launch and bring down a missile while it's still over its home country--that's a pretty big deterrent.

A couple of posts before this one, Ray wrote something that I doubt he could have known because it has been a well kept secret.  "We couldn't stop the former USSR  from  developing them (nukes)....."

During WW2 a U.S. Army Air Force Major and Lend-Lease expediter, Grorge Racey Jordan, became aware of the transfer of, and actually saw and handled, among other things, materials and technidal information that, as it turned out, were used by the Russians to build their first atom bomb.  He wrote about in a book "From Major Jordan's Diaries".  A couple of his statements:

"Not until the latter part of 1949 was it definitely proved, from responsible records, that during the was Federal agencies delivered to Russia at least three consignments of uranium chemicals, totaling 1,465 pounds, or nearly thre quarters of a ton.  Confirmed also was the shipment of one kilogram, or 2,2 pounds of uranium metal at a time when the total American stock was 4,5 pounds." (Pg. 95)

"Under Lend-Lease law the President had full power to decide what defense articles, defense asistance the Russians were to get.  He delegated that power to harry Hopkins, with the result that in addition to defense supplies, the Russians got whatever they asked for, if someone in the lower hierarchy tried to prevent it." (Pg 130)  And Jordan tried to prevent certain shipments,  including the "bomb powder" the Russians were anxious to get.

Hopkins lived in the White House during a big part of WW2, and was a close advisor to President Roosevelt.  He died shortly after WW2 and the matter of his treason was never pursued.  However, a KGB defector, Colonel Oleg Gordievskie, described in his book "KGB: the Inside Story", identified Harry Hopkins as "an agent of influence".  And the book "Venona: Soviet Espionage and American Response, 1939-1957" reported the Hopkins was working for the Soviets along with Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White.  Also, Hopkins was identified by certain ex-communists, including Elizabeth Bentley, as a  communist spy.

I posted more excerpts plus info about Harry Hopkins on:    www.latterdayconservative.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1363