Re: "Two axioms come to mind: a)those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, and b)nations always tend to prepare to fight their last war."
True, true.... But I prefer Mark Twain's: History does not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes!
Re: "I'll quickly acknowledge that the Iran-Iraq war was bloody and stupid war, with little strategic thought."
Whereas I believe that it WORKED OUT VERY WELL for American strategic interests, (& would have worked even better if we had not changed policies toward the end to prop up and 'save' the S.H. regime....)
Re: "...if the US precipitously abandons Iraq, and Iran invades."
First of all, it's an OPEN QUESTION whether there is, or should be, any nation called 'Iraq'.
It is an ARTIFICIAL CONSTRUCT, three disparate Ottoman Provinces, with differing ethnicities and religions, was stitched together by Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia one afternoon (over a LOT of drinks) in an effort to create a WEAK 'nation' that would be EASY for the Colonial Power England to rule. (They failed rather quickly in their attempt to 'rule' the place. Turned out the only thing the locals hated more then their immediate neighbors was the foreigners. :-)
So, whether there should be a unitary nation called 'Iraq', or three different nations (The Kurds are ALREADY well on their way to achieving freedom and Kurdish nationhood), or some sort of weak federation --- is a mater that ONLY the locals can decide... and we are of no help at all in determining this.
As to 'Iran invading', don't make me laugh!
Iran is the ONE NATION on the face of the Earth that has benefited the *most* from having their great enemy Saddam toppled for FREE by an obliging Uncle Sammy. They've *GOT* what they always dreamed of: a Shia-dominated buffer State to their West between them and the Sunni States like Saudi Arabia!
The LOVE the way things have developed (they've got a defense treaty with the Shiite government of 'Iraq', got Uncle Sammy shooting at all their Sunni Arab enemies, like the Bathists and like al Qaeda, for them... and got their agents in most every Government Ministry in Baghdad, and know that they've got leverage over us with regard to any offensive action we might possibly take against their nuclear program because there are many ways they could easily hit us back in Iraq... inciting a fundamentalist Shia revolt in the south, etc., etc.)
Re: "So long as a significant number of muslims have their focus on a world wide caliphate, the conflict will spread."
Not if they are pinned down FIGHTING EACH OTHER, it won't! :-)
Re: "Arrgghh!! So, you think that US imports of oil won't be impacted by a decrease of Mideast oil?"
No.
You seem to have misunderstood what I said.
I believe that a wider Sunni/Shia, and Arab/Persian, conflict will result in BOTH power blocs being *forced* to pump full-out to finance their war efforts. (That is pretty much the only way the Iranians and the Saudis could keep a war going.)
This will result --- for a *number of years* to come, just as it did throughout the decade of the 1980s --- in FALLING hydrocarbon prices, and a huge economic boom in the West, Jim.
(CERTAINLY a better result for us then adding Trillions in debt for very little possible gain....) |
