Quote Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost View Post
The challenge for non-intervention (normally my default position) is two-fold:

a) Many Islamic states also sit atop our energy sources. The West cannot allow the oil to stop flowing.

b) The damage has, in large part, already been done by intervention and Islamofascism has, and will, reach out to affect us on our own shores.

Like it or not, we're involved.
partly the reason why i said what i said above.

the west only needs the middle-east for the next generation, when the oil runs out and the ME is left with a bunch of non-consuming, zero middle-class, illerate peasants we simply won't care.

so the ME has to persuade us that its in our interest to support democratic reform versus supporting autocrats.

democratic reform will have a cost (i.e. potentially installing islamist gov'ts), what we need to know is that benefits outweigh the costs of continueing to sit on the pressure cooker until we cease to depend on the ME's oil and gas.

the benefits alluded to above might include the transformation of the ME into an advanced trading region within a generation, so we have some reason to look beyond the oil.