RUSH: I would not reject the possibility here that Bashar Assad’s being framed. By the way, I’ve got no brief for the guy. He’s not a friend of mine and I’m not particularly interested in this guy maintaining power or what have you. But I’ll tell you, it is clear to me what our foreign policy is in the Middle East. It’s just like Jimmy Carter — we got rid of the Shah. He was a dictator but he was a stabilizing dictator. And, by the way, some of you might say, “Rush, what do you mean we’re supporting dictators and all that?” The world’s a dangerous place.

But don’t forget this. The left thinks the world is a dangerous place if the US is a lone superpower. Don’t forget Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state for Clinton. She was out there talking about, it’s great when the Soviet Union was a superpower because it kept us in check. The idea that we’re the good guys is not something that these people believe, leftists, American leftists. They think we’re the problem in the world. So they do not trust the United States as a lone superpower. They like a competing superpower to keep us in check. And we, on the other hand, in order for stability to maintain our interests, like one of our interests in the Middle East is obviously the free flow of oil at market prices. All right, that’s our interest, not the people of the Middle East. It’s not our responsibility.

Iraq, Bush policy tried to change that, but our number one interest in the Middle East is oil, free flow, market prices. So if stable dictators are the best way to maintain the free flow of oil at market prices, that’s what we’ll do, until the left gets in charge. They start talking about they don’t like dictators, which is croc, they love ’em. But they do not think that a policy of free flow of oil at market prices is valid. To them that’s immoral and unjust. Our foreign policy ought to be based on human rights and civil rights and all that nefarious stuff. So they want to get rid of the stabilizing dictators — I’m using this term loosely, and instead ostensibly put people in power that are there the result of a democratic process.

I give Egypt as an example, Tahrir Square. They hated Mubarak, despised Mubarak because of civil rights violations, human rights violations. Mubarak was good for us. They hated him. They loved the Muslim Brotherhood moving in. Ostensibly they were elected, although they weren’t. So what is happening in the Middle East is that just like Jimmy Carter before him and just like other leftist dingbat presidents before him, Obama is changing the definition of US vital national interests and it’s got nothing to do with oil. Human rights and civil rights, and I don’t mean to impugn those, but they don’t really believe in that, either. Those are just catchphrases designed to emotionally appeal to people, to make them support it.

The American foreign policy of Barack Obama or Lyndon Johnson is rooted in the belief that the United States is the problem and that another problem is us seeking to secure the free flow of oil at market prices. They don’t like oil. They don’t like oil companies. That’s, to them, unjust and immoral. So get rid of any dictator that facilitates that and instead let the people choose their leaders, which never happens. They just change dictators under the guise of a more human rights friendly dictator, although they won’t even admit that their guys are dictators, but the Muslim Brotherhood is.

What’s happening now is that Obama is replacing stabilizing dictators, and that term may rub people wrong. That’s why I’m spending some time here trying to define it. US vital national interests in the Middle East is the free flow of oil at market prices. Democrats listening to me right now, I’m telling you, are foaming at the mouth. They’re throwing things at the radio. They’re calling the radio station. They can’t stand it. Free flow of oil at market prices, they hate that. That’s exactly the wrong reason for us to be anywhere in the world ’cause they hate oil. Oil is global warming. Oil is profit. Oil is dirt. Oil is pollution. Oil is yuck. So they hate that. But it clearly makes total sense.

Now, we need not have that vital interest policy if we would simply develop our own oil, Keystone pipeline, fracking, and we could change our vital national interest definition in that region. And Bush did try to. Bush, man of God, George W. Bush really thought that if Iraq would become an American-like democracy, not American-like in terms of founding Constitution, but just direct elections with law-abiding leaders, democratic process. His belief was that people all over the world are the same. They want freedom, self-determination. They don’t want to live under dictatorships. Democracy Project, it was called, and he thought if he could make Iraq work it would show the rest of the Middle East what’s possible. It would cause all the nations, peoples of the Middle East demanding the same thing.

It didn’t get enough time to play that out, and there were a lot of American foreign policy experts who thought it was impossible anyway because Middle Eastern people are just not comfortable with self-determination because of Islam. The two don’t go together. You know, those are arguments that continue to take place and be made. The point is here, I know it sounds like I’m diverting from my point, but I’m really not. My point here is is that we’ve got a president from the left who thinks that the United States is the problem in the world, and he thinks that if we’re the problem, any of the relationships that we had with foreign leaders prior to Obama are also unjust, immoral, and dubious.

So Mubarak had to go. Assad has to go. So they’re getting rid of these dictators, which did stabilize things, it kept the oil flowing basically, because they profited from it. They didn’t treat their people well, but that wasn’t our concern. We can’t be the police force of the world. But Obama’s got a different view. He’s replacing these dictators with militant Islamists, radical Muslim dictators. And this is what Assad sees.

Assad may be a Muslim, but he’s in the Al-Qaeda camp. Al-Qaeda is fighting him. Al-Qaeda’s on the ground. They constitute the rebels in Syria, and it’s on the table now that they mighta gassed themselves, their own people, to frame Bashar, make it look like he’s doing it for the express purpose of having us come in and take out their opposition, their enemy, Bashar, which it looks like we’re getting ready to do for ’em. And you’ve heard some people question, “Why in the world do we want to be on the same side as Al-Qaeda in this?”

Because Obama looks at guys like Bashar and Mubarak and the Shah of Iran as absolute reprobates, and they’re reprobates because they were US allies under previous administrations. If we’re bad, they’re bad. If we’re the problem in the world, any relationship we had is a problem in the world. Believe me. You know these liberals. They think they’re God’s gift to everything and they’ve got all the answers.

All they do is make everything they touch worse. I don’t care if it’s domestic, if it’s foreign policy, if it’s economic, everything they touch goes to excrement — and it doesn’t take long. Everything they touch. There’s never been one example in the world of leftists making anything better as they promise. They make it better for themselves, obviously, the leadership. So you tell me: Is it in our interests for the Middle East, other than Israel, to have as leaders…?

We’ve already got it Turkey. We’ve got a militant radical Islamist running Turkey. It makes sense we want one here? Do we want Hamas and Hezbollah running countries outside of Gaza? That’s where we’re headed, because Obama thinks guys like Mubarak and Assad are reprobates ’cause they had previous relationships with previous American presidents, and America is the problem in the world and so we gotta ditch all that.

So if you want to get rid of Bashar, what better way than make it look like he’s nerve gassing his own people. Now, this Bodansky guy that I quoted in the first hour, this is not by any means the first time that he’s written about this. He wrote extensively about how this very thing was used in Sarajevo that got us into that war on the side of the Bosnian Muslims. He talks about how it’s deception, and it has worked.

So this idea that we would be… Well, let’s leave ourselves out of this just a second. That’s something the low-information people will never accept even if it’s true. You could show ’em proof and they wouldn’t believe it. Let’s just leave it at Al-Qaeda is using nerve gas on their own people as a setup, as a frame for Bashar to get us to take Bashar out for them. It’s working. I mean, the conventional wisdom in Washington is, “We gotta side with Obama! We gotta go in there and we gotta take Bashar out. We just have to do it!”

Meanwhile, there are some who will discount this theory or this possibility. “This is crazy, Rush. This is absolute lunacy. No way! This is the kind of kook, conspiracy stuff you find on the Internet, Rush.” Well, now, are we not preparing here, in our own country, for Al-Qaeda to possibly use chemical and biological weapons on us? We are, aren’t we? The Obama administration, Homeland Security department, they conduct exercises involving local and state officials getting ready for this event.

Why?

Because we think it’s possible.

Well, if it’s possible Al-Qaeda would use chemical weapons here, why not there? So I don’t know. I’m troubled by the fact that we’re so eager to sign on board with an ongoing policy here that is replacing… Now, I know. Part of me loves saying that vital American interests are “the free flow of oil at market prices,” ’cause that’s like showing Dracula the cross when you say that to a bunch of liberals, particularly if they’re environmentalist wackos.

They hate the free flow of oil at market prices as a foreign policy. They despise it. They call it “blood for oil.” Blood for ego? That’s another thing. That’s cool. Blood for oil? No way. You look at Kerry and Hillary and Biden and Chuck Hagel and Obama. These guys used to tout Bashar! They used to sing Bashar’s praises, and it wasn’t that long ago that they did. Bashar was a great reformer. Bashar was the future hope, a stabilizing influence in the Middle East.

So this is wide open.