Rick Santorum: What Are We Going To Do With You?

Because really, you are quite insane.

Be careful Ricky.

They’re a — they’re a theocracy. They’re a theocracy that has deeply embedded beliefs that — that the afterlife is better than this life.

Or you might be in danger of loosing the batshit vote.

Santorum: Iranians’ ‘Principle Virtue’ To Die For God ‘Is An Encouragement For Them To Use’ Nukes

By Eli Clifton

January 09, 2012 "Think Progress" -- GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has staked out ground as one of the most hawkish candidates in the Republican field. Over the past several months, Santorum has promised to order air strikes on Iran if they don’t immediately give in to his full list of demands, declared that the Iranians “will not and cannot be negotiated with,” and threatened to target Iranian nuclear scientists for assassination as “enemy combatants” like al Qaeda.

But in the following exchange from the New Hampshire Republican debate on Sunday, Santorum’s Iran policy appears to be framed, in no small part, by his extremist views on Islam and a belief that the Islamic Republic’s leadership is inherently irrational and suicidal:

DAVID GREGORY: I wonder why it is, if America has lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we have come to live with a nuclear North Korea, why is it that we cannot live with a nuclear Iran?

And if we can’t, are you prepared to take the country to war to disarm that country?

RICK SANTORUM: They’re a — they’re a theocracy. They’re a theocracy that has deeply embedded beliefs that — that the afterlife is better than this life. President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said the principle virtue of the Islamic Republic of Iran is martyrdom.

So when your principle virtue is to die for your — for Allah, then it’s not a deterrent to have a nuclear threat, if they would use a nuclear weapon. It is, in fact, an encouragement for them to use their nuclear weapon. And that’s why there’s a difference between the Soviet Union and China and others and Iran. More Think Progress