Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "So, Carl, let me ask you this. Do you perceive an invasion of Iraq as an "if" question or a "when" question?"
My oft repeated statement is that we're not going into Iraq against the better judgement of our allies, the fears of our seasoned diplomats, and the warnings of our military. It just isn't going to happen. No unilateral regime toppling with Saddam through the use of massive force. A covert action is possible, but not likely.
Hey, if something came up that suddenly turned our allies around, that might turn the military around too. Then it could happen. But a divided US is simply not going to open up significant hostilities.
But talk is cheap, and talk of war is cheap too.
War is a relatively rare thing, compared to talk of war.
You did notice that the Indians and Pakistanis beat the war drums for months and then didn't do anything, didn't you?
Think back to the Kuwaiti and Afghanistani liberations. When the US is going to make an attack it gives the other guy a very specific type of ultimatum. The ultimatum includes a demand, and an hour that the demand must be met by. When you hear that, you can guess that the probability of war is present.
What Bush is doing is popularly known as "trash talking".
Trash talking doesn't mean that you're going to walk over to your car and get the pistol out of the glove box.
If every incident of trash talking resulted in a murder, we'd all be criminal justice system lawyers.
Oh, by the way, the US military just published another mobilization figure. They demobilized another 1,044 reserves this week to bring the total to 78,080, the least it's been since February:
defenselink.mil
We've already repeatedly demonstrated that US airpower is almost worthless at toppling regimes. As became obvious from Kuwait, you have to have ground pounders to take / liberate territory. The reason Japan gave up before the US Army rolled into Tokyo is because they reached a situation where they knew for a fact that the US Army was going to be there.
Now in the current situation, it is utterly impossible for us to roll the US Army into Baghdad while at the same time reducing our mobilized reserves. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise. This is just the simple military fact. So the Debka solution is that we are going to arm some local group to march into Baghdad, like in Afghanistan.
But the only two choices are the Kurds and the Shias. The Shias are fronted by Iran and are Islamic radicals. The Kurds are fighting them up in Kurdistan, and the US (and Turkey) is supporting the Kurds against the Islamics. This is perfectly compatible with our war on Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. In fact, Northern Iraq would make a great prize for the Islamic Fundamentalist types, so it's important that the US be there. And the situation in Northern Iraq is not as simple as a "let's all unite and push out Saddam". There are what, 5 major military groups loose in Northern Iraq, and they're all shooting at each other off and on. As far as "united" goes, those guys make the Afghanis look like the 13 colonies.
So are we going to arm the Shias and turn Iraq from a secular dictatorship into a revolutionary Islamic Republic? Of course not.
Let me make a simple observation on terror.
Terrorists need cash, but cash is nowhere near as important as the motivation that makes people turn themselves into bombs. If you go to the right immigrant silicon valley millionaire and get enough money to pay for the training of the WTC terrorists a thousand times over. There are little collection sites for money donated to support terrorism all over the planet. They undoubtedly have far more money than they really need.
Instead of cash, or explosives (which are universally available in every state on the planet), the fundamental limiting restriction on terrorism is love of life. I've commented on this fact before, in my calculations of the suicide bombing rate in Palestine. To get people to ignore that genetically programmed love of life requires far more than Saddam Hussein could ever provide. To get even a few hundred people to kill themselves requires the concerted efforts of thousands of preachers. This is why the US will never, ever, ever, arm the Shia fundamentalists. It's just simply not an option.
The other alternative is to arm the Kurds.
Okay, so we put together an army of, say, 150,000 Kurds to take on the 400,000 man Iraqi elite forces. In order for the Kurds to actually be able to make progress against the Iraqis will require that the Kurds have real weapons. Plastic butter knives are not an option.
Now look at it from Turkey's point of view. The Kurds have been running their own little state in Northern Iraq for years, protected by US aircraft. One of the Kurds dreams (spoken or not), is a united Kurdistan, including parts from Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. The Turks, like every other power with a minority in their backyard (i.e. Britain and the Irish), are not going to let that happen, to the best of their abilities. That means that the Turks are not going to let us arm the Kurds.
So we'll have to go into Iraq with what, Turkish soldiers? The problem with that is that the Turkish public is very much against even the US sanctions against Iraq. If we get their government to send their soldiers to fight the Iraqis we will end up with Turkey destabilized. But Turkey isn't going to let that happen.
The same sort of argument goes for the other neighbors of Iraq. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the emotions of the region were ones of sympathy for the plight of the Kuwaitis. Now the sympathies are for the plight of the Iraqis.
As long as Saddam keeps his nose clean with his immediate neighbors (he can do whatever he likes to Israel), he is safe from US invasion.
I've given you the (very obvious) analysis, complete with links to the figures that back up the suppositions. What Debka does is take trivial details of stuff that's been going on around the world for decades and blows it up into news that it can peddle to the people stupid enough to send them money.
-- Carl |
