Limbaugh on Middle East: "Fine, just blow the place up"

On the November 27 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, in response to claims made by King Abdullah II of Jordan on the November 26 edition of ABC's This Week that "we could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands," Rush Limbaugh said: "[W]ell, let's just have them. Let's just have the civil wars ... because I'm just fed up with this." Limbaugh then asserted: "Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them." Additionally, Limbaugh claimed: "[E]verbody comes to us. ... So we go and try to fix it and our own people, Democrats and the left in our country do their best to sabotage our efforts, and then we get blamed for trying to clean up the messes that these people start."

According to Talkers magazine, The Rush Limbaugh Show reaches more than 13.5 million listeners each week, the largest talk radio audience in the nation.

From the November 27 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: So anyway, [This Week host George] Stephanopoulos asks King Abdullah II of Jordan if this is the case:

ABDULLAH [audio clip]: George, the difficulty that we're tackling with here is we're juggling with the strong potential of three civil wars in the region. Whether it's the Palestinians of Lebanon or of Iraq, and I hope my discussions at least with the president --

LIMBAUGH: [heavy sigh]

ABDULLAH [audio clip]: -- will be to provide whatever we can do for the Iraqi people, but the same time we do want to concentrate ourselves on the core issues which we believe are the Palestinians and the Palestinian peace process, because that is a must today --

LIMBAUGH: Oh, give me a break.

ABDULLAH [audio clip]: -- as well as the tremendous concern we have had over the last several days with what's happening in Lebanon. And we could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands.

LIMBAUGH: All right, well, let's just have them. Let's just have the civil wars and let the crumbs crumble and the cookie crumble where -- because I'm fed up with this. The Palestinian situation -- for 50 years we've had the Palestinian situation, and it's not going to be solved until the Limbaugh Doctrine is imposed or tried. And that is, this is a war, and until somebody loses it, it isn't going to stop. And now, you know, we've done everything we can to make Lebanon a democracy, and it's crumbling because Syria keeps killing the popular leaders there. Meanwhile, the Hezbos [Hezbollah] keep expanding their influence in Lebanon.

But what the hell! We're going to bring Syria and Iran in to fix Iraq, why not let them just fix the whole region? If we're heading to civil war -- I mean, everybody comes to us: "You got to fix this and you got to fix that." So we go and try to fix it, and our own people, Democrats and the left in our country do their best to sabotage our efforts, and then we get blamed for trying to clean up the messes that these people start. And then they come on our television show: "[Gibberish] George [gibberish] civil war [gibberish] we gotta do something. Palestinians it's a must, it's a must, we must [gibberish] right now [gibberish] war."

Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them, instead of trying to use -- I just -- sometimes natural force is going to happen. You're going to have to let it take place. You can spend all the time you like with diplomacy, and you can spend all the time you want massaging these things with diplomatic -- you're just -- you're just delaying the inevitable.

—A.I.