Well my attention does tend to drift on political topics, that is the nature of threads. Let's look at your original post again:
I'm watching Tucker Carlson at the moment, and some joker is on claiming that Iran is a direct threat to the United States.
Tucker Carlson lost the bowtie but he's still a total dork. He and his guests suck. (Congratulations on being in his audience of 6, though.)
Iran became a direct threat to the United States when their radical government took our embassy hostage for OVER A YEAR during the cowardly Jimmy Carter administration. The Ayatollah's slogan "American can do nothing" became a rallying cry for Islamic jihad. Furthermore, Iran's deliberate and obvious attempt to attain
hegemony over the entire Middle East (as noted by countless commentators from the entire political spectrum) makes them a direct and deadly threat to the United States, our allies in the region, and our interests globally.
I'm curious as to what Question thinks about American troops being in Germany, South Korea, Okinawa, Bosnia, or any other place they're stationed worldwide. Do you also believe there is no direct threat to the United States in those places, so we should pull all the troops home?
So explain how Iran has the capability of striking the United States with anything other than Hezbollah cells, which our government is (supposedly) enforcing all of its draconian surveillance against.
Fortunately for the United States, we do not have a president who waits while threats to us build and build and build until we are doomed by events. Bush has acted to head off threats from the area quite well, and the harder we push, the harder the Islamic fundamentalists push back. Liberals act like this is a great surprise, these people are bent on power and domination of the region, not because they suddenly don't like Bush.
You say it's not about Bush? It's all about Bush to the left, and we'd be seeing a very different take from the left on the Middle East and the War on Terror if a Democrat were prosecuting it. I think that's sad, but that's politics as usual from the hate-filled left.
-Ogami