Steve,
Good response. People like lgkick seem to think there’s this alternative ME reality in which we could find ourselves allies who aren’t compromised in some way relative to our own political systems and principles. I suppose lgkick would have had us support the nascent Communist movements of the 1950′s and 1960′s, who were probably the only organized forces aside freom the dictators and mullahs of the region. The choices made have not been the choices I would make, either, but to say that we’ve somehow been holding the ME “ransom” is nonsense. What’s holding the entire region, and our policy toward it, “ransom” is Mohammed and the bandit’s religion he made up. Get rid of Islam and the sky’s the limit for the Middle East. I used to think Communism was the worst thing that had ever happened to humanity. Now I realize that it has a co-champion to share that prize with in Islam.
