"It's not a civil war till other Iraqis start shooting back."
LOL!
Oh, I'm *sure* the Shi'a will start fighting for themselves (maybe they already have: there have been recent rumors out of Iraq of 'Shi'a death squads' taking out Sunni suspected insurgents...) just AS SOON as they don't have Uncle Patsy to carry their water for them.
The signs are already there: the recent Defense Treaty Iraq signed with Iran, the 'trainers' Iran has offered to supply, the rumors of heavy Iranian Intelligence involvement already, etc.
And, SINCE the Sunnis are not going to give up the fight, and have access to 'unlimited funding' (according to US military intelligence briefing from Baghdad) and resupply from their Sunni neighbors in Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, etc.... and since 'incidents' have been steadily ramping up for over a year now, I think it's fairly obvious where events are going.
IMO, it would be very much in our own best interests to get out of the middle, and let Iran & Saudi Arabia fight their little proxy war without our help.
(After all: it was Reagan & Rumsfeld's strategy to pit Saddam against the Iranians in the '80s... and it worked QUITE WELL until we fumbled the strategy and moved to help Saddam survive.)
Time to let history move on without mucking it up. Islam is still caught partly in the Middle Ages because --- unlike Christianity --- it never experienced a Reformation.
Likely a Saudi/Iranian Iraq conflict would ultimately prove VERY BENEFICIAL to Western values and to the world at large. Corrupt and unpopular regimes on BOTH SIDES would become even more unpopular with their people... Islam would experience a civil war (ultimately reaching a more accomodative tolerance for religious pluralism), and the world of Islam would be TARGETING EACH OTHER... instead of the West.
The West --- not being involved/implicated as 'Colonialists' or as 'Crusaders' would no longer excite the baser fundamentalist elements within the region... so there would be both short term AND long term benefits for us.
Likely the Sunni/Shi'a conflict would be fought over the proxy of Iraq --- and oil exports from Saudi Arabia or Iran not greatly put at risk. (After all: both sides would need oil sales on world markets to keep their splendid little religious war going....) Ultimately, a partition of Iraq would be the likeliest resolution to the mess... but then, the borders of Iraq are artificial anyway. |
