What would really happen if we left Iraq?

[grampster]

Some thoughtful scenarios in this thread. Also some simplistic wishful thinking. The world is not birthday party where everyone is friendly and gets along. It is a violent place that is interupted from time to time with a little peace in various and sundry places.

As for Vietnam, the lesson there is Americans don't have the stomach for doing what is necessary once they stick their nose in a thing. That lesson has been repeated several times thereafter. We are in danger of reinforcing that lesson in Iraq. If we do, it will only get worse. We need to ramp up our violence and teach a lesson. The Sleeping Giant no longer backs down. We either do it now, or we will have to do it later. We are disrespected in this world because no one fears us anymore. The proper kind of fear is that if you leave us alone, we will leave you alone and even give you a hand. If you don't leave us alone, you get your ass kicked.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best and it still applies today, if one has any sense.
"Walk softly and carry a big stick".

 

[308win]

The Iranians fought a war with Iraq that went on for eight years, cost them a million or so lives, and when the war was halted Sadaam was still in power with the same military capability, Sunnis controlled Iraq and nothing had changed that improved the Iranian position. Now fast forward 15 years - Sadaam is out of power, Iraq has zero military capability, the Sunnis are out and the Shia are in power - in other words, the Iranians have accomplished many of their goals and it has cost them NOTHING and they have watched the Great Satan bleed himself.

In the mean time: we have thousands of killed and maimed; spent $300 billion or so and no end in sight; tied our hands as far as any tactical response to Iranian, North Korean, or anyother pissant country's actions; set off a set of economic circumstances that will make the inflation of the late 1970's and early 80's look like child's play; destroyed whatever international credibility we had; and the rest of the Middle East is less trustful of us than ever.

Edited to add: And as far as the Iraqis being in any position to assume more responsibility for their destiny anytime soon, the Marines can turn out a trained soldier ready to fullfil his mission in 16 weeks. We have been training the new Iraqi army for 2+ years now and they have 1 that's one combat ready battalion and I would be willing to bet in a serious dust up they would be seriously gone over the hill early in the process. So forget the Iraqis taking being in any position to control their own destiny anytime soon.

IMHO this has been an unqualified success now lets declare victory again ala 1975 and go home. Edited to add: Or, let's let the world know that we don't think that this sh*t hole of a country and its piss poor excuse for the human race inhabitants aren't worth one more drop of American blood and if all 25 million of them (or however many there are) have to die to get this over with then: Let's git'er done, the sooner the faster we get out of this mess.

 

[longhorngunman]

Grampster said "We are disrespected in this world because no one fears us anymore. The proper kind of fear is that if you leave us alone, we leave you alone and even give you a hand. If you don't leave us alone, you get your ass kicked." I don't know if truer words have ever been typed and completely represent why we took Saddam "the thug" Hussein out must stay and finish the job. For the last 15 years after we "militarily" wiped Saddam on the battlefield yet he stayed in power and poked at us, all the while showing the other leaders of the ME that America wouldn't do what needed to be done. Same as all the attacks that OBL perpetuated against us in the 90's and we wouldn't respond appropriately. Well after 9/11 that policy has changed, hopefully we won't go back to our old ways. And don't think us taking out Saddam didn't make an impression on the other despots in the area. Say Saddam didn't have any WMD, well ole Khadafi in Libya sure as hell did and turned them over after Saddam's topple also learned then about all the nuke technology trading that was going on all over the area. Of course you won't hear much about that in the MSM.

 

[Major Beer]

6 pack molson rant

i really do not see this as a separate war since we bombed the ???? out of them in the no fly zone for 13 years + - i just see this as the mopping up phase from our initial involvement when W's ole man was in charge - Slick Willy let them build up a wrap sheet a mile long to justify our boots on the ground.

regardless if Gore won in 2000, i still saw the US going into Iraq after Saddam eventually.

i have a sneaky suspicion we will reduce troop levels at the end of W's term to make him look good. i like W for some reason ( i vote for him twice) - but i can see US forces there until 2050 - like Korea. we will never fully leave in our lifetime IMHO. hell we are still in Germany - but we have a 10 year plan to rotate out of there --- to Iraq?

Jews, oil, etc - i wish it were about that. i am just ticked that we are fighting for a Euro wheenie style of gov't: Socialist Democracy where parliment majority elects the leader. if it is about oil - GOOD - keep it from the Chi-Comms.

as far as Iran getting nukes, let them have them under the idea if an ICBM leaves the ground heading west, we will make their land a sheet of green glass. this Team America World Police thang we are caught up in is really beginning to make me sick . we will win i am sure of it - just from reading my buddies' mail from over there - our presense is appreciated. i just wish we would back off our intervention stance a bit (after this one). if Taiwan gets invaded by china, i just hope we stay the hell out of it - since Walmart would go under

between the Kurds and the Shia, i think they will be able to handle the Sunni's / Al Queida soon enough.

 

[Major Beer]

well ole Khadafi in Libya sure as hell did and turned them over after Saddam's topple also learned then about all the nuke technology trading that was going on all over the area. Of course you won't hear much about that in the MSM.

bravo - you covered my theory on the WMD issue

 

[wingnutx]

Headless,

What you fail to mention is that Bush is no longer fighting the War in Iraq to win. He is fiddling around, accomplishing little at best, and putting Americans at risk.

Just because you don't personally witness us fighting effectively doesn't mean we aren't doing it.

Of course it is hard to show measurable change when our main goal right now is getting local troops up and running. We are doing that, and quite effectively, but it's not so spectacular a demonstration as taking ground or levelling cities. Showing that x number of batallions went from 30% readiness to 85% is boring, while car bombs are great news copy.

It's simply hard slog.

 

[bjbarron]

Yeah, we should get out of Iraq.
All the troops in Iraq should head east...
And all the troops in Afghanistan should head west.

What the hell, we gotta leave sometime...might as well get something done on the way out.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Of course it is hard to show measurable change when our main goal right now is getting local troops up and running.

I disagree that getting the Iraqi troops up and running is our main goal. We have 130,000 US troops in Iraq, with plans to increase that to 180,000 in January.

It does not take 180,000 troops to get the Iraqi army up and running. We are fighting a war.

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

Yeah, we should get out of Iraq.
All the troops in Iraq should head east...
And all the troops in Afghanistan should head west.

What the hell, we gotta leave sometime...might as well get something done on the way out.

BJ, my money is on Israel hitting them within 180 days.

 

[Spiphel Rike]

Good post hillbilly, that sounds exactly like those wanna be politicos at my school. On another note, pulling out of iraq right now would be a mistake, a strong police and military must be established first.

 

[HankB]

As for Vietnam, the lesson there is Americans don't have the stomach for doing what is necessary once they stick their nose in a thing . . . We are disrespected in this world because no one fears us anymore.

Good point. My late father - a WWII vet - was outraged over the "negotiations" with Hanoi that led to the end of US involvement in Vietnam. Why? Well, with all the bombs we dropped - more than in WWII - there should have been no Hanoi left to negotiate with. The place Hanoi (and all other N. Vietnamese cities and ports) had been ought to have been marked by a field of overlapping bomb craters.

But thanks to political correctness, that didn't happen . . . with predictable results.

 

[BigG]

We are disrespected in this world because no one fears us anymore. The proper kind of fear is that if you leave us alone, we will leave you alone and even give you a hand. If you don't leave us alone, you get your ass kicked.

Grampster is right. "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." as David Farragut said.

 

[goosegunner]

Why the hurry? You have still not pulled out of Germany.

 

[AZLibertarian]

Little of this answers the question of "What would happen if we left Iraq", but here are a few loosely-connected, but related thoughts...

• Last year, the mantra was "Where's the Exit Strategy?" Well, the short answer is that there isn't one. We'll leave when we win--and even then we'll stay (as we've done in many places all over the globe). We're in Iraq (and the wider GWOT) for the long haul and this has been no secret from the start. We didn't start, or even want this war, but now that we're in it, we're in it for good.

• On the "War for Oil" point...I don't think this is the case, as I think that Iraq has only recently been exporting oil, and practically none of it to the US. However, more generally: So what? What if the War had been directly for oil? Like it or not, the world's economy runs on oil, and stability in this commodity is important all over the globe.

• The failure to find WMDs...Frankly, I'm surprized they haven't shown up in the quantities that everyone had expected. I'm guessing that whatever remain are now in Syria. I think that Saddam and his military believed they had them...certainly the US and UN believed so. [I recently read a story (forget where now. Sorry.) that Iraqis guarding arms depots were fastidious about keeping insects away from the arms. Why would they do this if not through a belief that their depots contained WMDs?] However, again: So what? That Saddam was a madman cannot be debated. He'd used WMDs. He proudly and publicly supported terrorists. He'd been a beligerant in the ME for decades. Why--even assuming we believed he didn't have WMDs--would we let him stay in power only to someday acquire them? We'd end up with an unstable dictator with WMDs sitting atop a major portion of the world's oil. One cannot both ask why did we not pre-empt those responsible for 9/11 and also wonder why we're fighting in Iraq.

• The media are actively ignoring the successes we've seen in Iraq. The successful elections are a huge event, and we see almost no discussion of them here. The Iraqi people are embracing democracy to a degree thought not possible for a Mid-East culture. We're not just producing new police and military recruits, but a whole new police and military system. The media are focused on the cumulative casualties as if that is the only measure of success. It is not.

• On Iran's nukes and Israel...I don't think that Israel will take them out unilaterally. Just as Israel didn't care about overflying Jordan to take out Saddams Osirak facility, I don't think they'll really care about Jordan or Syria today. But they will have to think about being shot down over Iraq by US Air Forces, and cannot dismiss the same from routes over Saudi Arabia. An airstrike will probably have to use US forces to tanker somewhere, which cannot help us in the Muslim world. And Iran has not been blind to Saddams errors in the last 25 years. Their nuclear targets are dispersed and hardened. I don't think that Israel has the capability or the legs to mount a successful airstrike themselves. However, I don't think that Israel is the only one thinking about what to do about Iran's nukes.