MSimon wrote:Question: How long did it take to turn South Korea into a democracy? For decades it looked like an impossible task.
Same for Taiwan.
Changing a culture takes time.
Took the Romans a century or two to civilize the Gauls.
I don't think we leave the Ummah after this coming round.
paperburn1 wrote:OK just my two cents worth but this is what is going to happen. we are going to play buddy buddy with Iran and give them support in return for them dropping their nuclear program. they will agree and send in troops(volunteers) to help.
Close, but not quite.
We will buddy-buddy with Iran, and we will NOT ask Iran to drop its nuclear program.
After Saddam's Iraq, Libya, and most recently Ukraine, no state with a nuclear program will ever end one again. Nonproliferation is dead.
Hell, the Saudis funded the recent Pakistani expansion of their nuclear production facilities. Good odds the first Saudi nukes have already been delivered to Riyadh.
paperburn1 wrote:They will control the lower third to half of Iraq and let the Kurd expand out to their old levels. we (US,Iran,Iraq) stomp the bad guys and now everyone is suppose to make nice nice and go home. but Iran thinks these oil fields make a great vacation spot and do not want to leave. we say no arms but they seem to have plenty left over from Syria
They tell the Kurd they can keep what they kill and that makes them happy. They set up housekeeping and start their nuclear "power" program back up. Tell the USA they got this and to back out now. If they want any oil they better let Shiite take care of Shiites. We bow up and they start helping Afghan rebels. The whole near east turns into one big turd bowl.
sit back wait and see.
I forgot to include the genocide of the remaining sunni
You've missed a few things.
1) The Kurds have cut a deal with the Turks, so a sovereign Kurdistan is possible. Certainly the oil in the north of Iraq will now be flowing to the sea via Turkey;
2) The Saudis may pay the Egyptian Army to come in;
3) The Saudi Kingdom may collapse - the Salafi terrorists have been how the Saudis have exported their hotheads for decades, and that mistake is now marching south in the general direction of the Arabian peninsula;
4) If the Shiia go too far in the direction of a Sunni genocide, the Sunni states in the area that are afraid of the Salafi Jihadis they've created need to decide which side to support;
5) The collapse of Libya and Egypt has put Egyptian finances on the brink. Egypt is a highly urbanized state of 80 million people, and it can't feed itself. What happens when the subsidized bread stops? The Egyptians can try a sea evac toward Greece or an overland through Israel. To call that Chaos is an understatement;
6) Russia is making its play for restored empire. The most recent events look like they're straight out of the "Germany in Poland in 1939" playbook. What happens when the Russians move on to seize the Baltics - NATO members;
7) China is rapidly ramping up the tensions with its neighbors, Japan is stepping up as regional front man with the Obama retreat, Japan can go nuclear in a week if it wants to, and I'd bet my soul the Taiwanese military has a few fission pits in quiet storage somewhere that can be built into weapons on a week's notice;
In sum, three critical global regions are girded for conflict, and the planet is on the edge of a fourth 30 year's war - probably one in two acts, like the last one that played out between 100 and 70 years ago.
Skipjack wrote:GIThruster wrote:We had turned things around and any modest effort left in place would have secured that country's future. The Dem's sacrificed all that hard work for political gain and this is all on their heads. This is pure evil.
This is not how the rest of the population saw it. The majority was for an end to the war (and the insane spending on it) and to the deaths of US troops. The job of politicians is to fulfill the will of the people, not the will of those that gain from such an arrangement.
No.
The job of politicians is to stay in power. After that, the job of politicians is to guarantee the survival of the polities they rule, so that they retain something to stay in power over.
I doubt the British people wanted war in 1937. Not that they had a choice in the matter. War has an interest in us these days... its fascinations will be indulged.
As to blame for Iraq... it is debatable. As much blame can be placed on the surge itself as on the pullout, but the pullout is later on the timeline, and so will probably take the lion's share of the blame.