Republicans Hold Foreign Policy Debate

One can only suppose that ignorance of recent history and international treaties are valued commodities.  Nothing else explains the statements made during the debate.

  Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said President Barack Obama’s policy toward Iran was his “greatest failing, from a foreign policy standpoint.”Romney said he work to impose “crippling sanctions” on Iran and would work for regime change. And he said he would be willing to take military action to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.
“If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon," the former Massachusetts governor declared.

 Herman Cain

Former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain said he would provide support to the opposition in Iran to help overthrow the current regime

In 1953 the C.I.A helped to overthrow the duly elected Prime Minister  Mohammad Mosaddeq whose main crime was demanding that Iran's oil wealth remain in Iran. The coup returned the Shah of Iran to power. The American of planed and led the coup was Kermit Roosevelt

On the morning of August 19, 1953, a crowd of demonstrators operating at the direction of pro-Shah organizers with ties to the CIA made its way from the bazaars of southern Tehran to the center of the city. Joined by military and police forces equipped with tanks, they sacked offices and newspapers aligned with Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and his advisers, as well as the communist Tudeh Party and others opposed to the monarch. By early afternoon, clashes with Mosaddeq supporters were taking place, the fiercest occurring in front of the prime minister's home. Reportedly 200 people were killed in that battle before Mosaddeq escaped over his own roof, only to surrender the following day. At 5:25 p.m., retired General Fazlollah Zahedi, arriving at the radio station on a tank, declared to the nation that with the Shah's blessing he was now the legal prime minister and that his forces were largely in control of the city.

In 1979 the Shah was overthrown in what became known as the Iranian Revolution and led to a complete collapse of state to state relations between the United States and Iran which remain today.

There are International Treaties against torture

Bachmann said she supported the use of waterboarding suspected terrorists to extract information.
But Paul said waterboarding was torture and that torture is “un-American,” “uncivilized,” as well as illegal, immoral and impractical — since, Paul argued, torture doesn’t yield useful information from terrorist suspects.

CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment

Article 1

1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3

1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.