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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (758972)	2/9/2007 1:45:37 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

"As you intimate in the paragraph previous to this, Christian reformation took a long time. You further suggest that things are speeded up these days, so Islamic reform will happen faster." (I said it might happen faster then the hundred years or so it took Christianity in the West....) "The world is different now. Technology changes much faster than people do, and zealots rarely change at all." Zealots don't have to change... not if they get KILLED OFF by opposing zealots in the civil war. :-) "I do not see Muslim zealots EVER changing, and they are gaining power and ruthlessness by the day." EVERYBODY DIES sooner or later. Even 'zealots'. And political causes can 'die' or can change independently of the lives of their most partisan adherents. If the causes of Sunni fundamentalist extremism and Shia fundamentalist extremism become TARNISHED ENOUGH in the minds of the peoples on the street --- an excellent reason for that would be because extremism brought years and years of turmoil and economic disaster and corruption and millions of dead common folks --- then the causes can falter and be over-thrown. It's a simple enough concept... happens all the time in history. (In fact: Saddam and the Mulahs of Iran EACH became deeply unpopular among their peoples as a result of the ruinous eight year long Iran/Iraq Gulf War between them. They came withing a 'gnats ass' of being overthrown. If the war had CONTINUED [if the US hadn't helped Saddam out with tactical intel so he not lose] then one or both systems would likely have suffered revolts from the commoners.) [An ancillary benefit, is that the Arab and Iranian publics would no-doubt grow to REJECT their corrupt, Autocratic rulers even sooner... for producing this bloody course of events!] "At least you put the blame where it belongs. However, I don't see any movement to that effect; in fact, it looks like the opposite to me." OF COURSE! That's because the US forces are STANDING IN THE MIDDLE, trying to PREVENT a religious war between Sunnis and Shiites! Alternately protecting one side form the other side, and visa versa. We are doing exactly the WRONG THING! (So, no wonder you don't see the RIGHT RESULTS yet!) [In the mid-term --- oil prices would fall globally as BOTH sides pumped full-out to try to keep their heads above water and finance their war efforts.] "Maybe, but I see the sides trying to wipe out the oil infrastructure, driving the price up." Iran is not BIG enough or populous enough (Shiites represent only about 20% of Muslims) to conquer ALL of the Sunni States... which stretch from Morocco to Indonesia. Persians are out-numbered by Arabs. Yet the Shiites are about 60% in Iran. The LIKELIEST scenario is that neither side can totally defeat the other (in military potential the sides are well-balanced), but there will be YEARS of bloody conflict over the bones of Iraq before they come to a political agreement among all parties that divides Iraq into smaller, more representative nations: Most likely a Shia zone in the South (with oil), Kurdistan in the north (with oil) and the Sunnis in the middle are left with scrubland, and a slice of Baghdad... and likely will sign up with either Jordan (like the old Trans-Jordan) or Arabia. ALL THIS will be BETTER for the West then what we have, or can reasonably expect, now.