The same thing that has been happening up till now, only instead of just having problems primarily in the southern sectors it will expand to encompass the entire country. Instead of having two different arenas for foreign fighters to pick from, they will gravitate to the one area we still maintain a major presence in.

I cannot speak for Iraq as I have not had to take that trip yet, but as for good old IROA, I can say fairly confidently that a withdrawl in Iraq will serve only to intensify the conflict there.

No Sir, I do not see that as a possibility. The only way to win decisively in Afghanistan is if the United States were to take complete control of everything there. The reason for this: AFGHANISTAN IS JUST A BATTLEFIELD.

I know thats a bold statement to make... but it didn't come from me. During my stay at lovely BAF, I had the opportunity to work with some of Afghanistan's finest... as well as Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, and a host of others. From their point of view, Afghanistan has always been, and will always be just a battlefield. Its just the "hotspot" for everyone to go to fight there battles. Of course, the presence of the United States in the area intensifies the draw to foreigners looking to please allah, but none the less it would be the same without us.

Perhaps in 20+ years after a continuous CA/PSY OPS presence the hostilities of the locals will have broken down and as the children and women have been educated by the schools we've built and treated by the hospitals we've established, but even then that won't "decisively win" anything.

9 out of 10 Afghans I saw had ZERO education (and they're all "only farmers" too, LOL). In order to affect change in Afghanistan (and other muslim countries) their religious beliefs must be "watered down" through secularism until they don't grow up believing that Americans are infidels and the only way they can be assured heaven is by dying in a jihad. That will happen over time with a continued presence on the ground until the current generations children's children are old enough and intelligent enough not to take verbatum what the mullah puts out.

How long did it take for people to get used to the idea of desegregation in this country? Even today we still have people in the deep south that hold on to that history of violent, extremist racism and it will never totally disappear. In the same way, you will never totally eradicate fundamentalist islamist bent on destruction of the west. But over time, and with the necessary support, the popular opinion of muslims can change just as American's opinions did after the civil rights movements.

Just my opinion.

To go even further then the above. Theoretically our foreign relations and other dealings with the world. Would be better off if we Nuked Iraq and completely decimated the country. Making it inhospitable for years. Instead of retreating. As bad as it sounds. The message would be. Even if you defeat our ground forces. You will lose in the end. Make victory for the enemy impossible. Send the message that if we can't win, no one can. Anything is better then retreating. This tactic may be to extreme but this type of attitude is needed to win.

Thus McCains statement early this week, "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb...Bomb, Bomb Iran"....

Concur.

Play ball with us, or get the bat shoved up your 4th POC.

TR

They do manufacture directional drill-heads for oil drilling... we can just go at it sideways. LOL

Why play fair when the enemy isn't.

Illegal slant drilling was one of Saddam's justifications for invading Kuwait. Probably his only legitimate one. lol

Regardless of how you feel about the religion, it seems to me that a great deal of insight into our current situation in the Middle East can be found in the Old Testament (even from a strictly historical standpoint). You had a small tribe (Israel) that somehow defied the odds and survived amidst the great powers of the world. The main reason that Israel survived was because of their battle tactics-kill the enemy in a violent and thorough way (i.e. wipe them out). The book of Joshua details this method of warfare and its effects. Moreover, what problems they during these times and afterwards came because as ruthless as they were, they were not thorough enough. That is, according to the OT, the Israelites were not as harsh on the enemy as they should have been (as God commanded) and their lack of follow through ended up being the cause of future trouble and wars.

Years ago, before our current wars, I asked my dad why God would command this and teach this lesson. My father, who has a Doctor of Theology, explained that it is not to teach us to go and kill and be blindly violent, but rather to teach us that evil, in any form, cannot be negotiated with.

I believe that you all (TS, TR especially) have hit the nail on the head with regards to the consequences of us leaving and the lack of resolve of our nation. I just wanted to give a little bit of ancient support for your modern argument.


"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9






Joe

Not only can “evil” be negotiated with, it can be an ally. In fact we would be a lot better off if we had retained some “evil” on our side in the past couple years.

“Evil” Syria was a great help after 9/11, their help saved American lives, and they were more then willing to get their hands dirty for us. Killing the Muslim Brothers is a national pastime in Evil Syria. If it was like a playground game of dodgeball and I was picking a team for a round of ‘Crush the Jihadi’, I would pick the Alawites in the first couple rounds. Right up there with Mattis, and some steely-eyed Mongols vintage 1258.

We could use an Evildoer dictator in Iraq right now. We should grab some evil Baathist that we have in lock-up, give him the keys to Maliki’s office, have em squash some uppity Shia, get him Sarkis Soghanalian’s Dictator-Deluxe Starter Package of Chilean cluster bombs and dual use CBW infrastructure, then have him go kick the Iranians in the teeth a couple times.

I swear the neoconservative “we don’t deal with evil” is more dangerous than liberal dogooderism.

“A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.” – George Orwell

Agreed. Like I said, we should not kill everyone who is "evil"-that is exactly the thought process that makes turns the Islamists into the killers that they are. My point is that you cannot negotiate or back away from evil that confronts you. If we leave and do not finish the job the world will see that we do not abide by this standard-that we are willing to negotiate with the evil that is threatening us. In other words, we are afraid and are giving into the fear, or we are blind and refuse to see the reality of what faces us. Either way we are weak and everyone will know it. The leader of the dog pack is only the leader as long as he asserts himself as the leader-otherwise he is attacked as weak.

Joe

I hear what you’re saying.
My concern is that this is what UBL wants. Draw us into a pit of quicksand where any “success” becomes pyrrhic due to resource, treasure, and moral costs. He has explicitly stated this, Afghanistan was the original aim, but Iraq has instead become it. Even Gen. Petraeus has stated that there is no military solution to Iraq.

UBL’s goal to is cause our internal decay and collapse from the cascading effects of our response. We are in a dire financial position. The dollar is on the verge of tanking, massive amounts of mortgage foreclosures are just a shot away, and energy cost and dependency will be doing nothing but increasing for years. I think any direct confrontation of Iran would be the tipping point of our nation’s implosion.

What would Fabius Maximus do?

I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion from what General Petraeus said. There is no solely military solution without the accompanying political, informational, and economic efforts. They will not work without a complementary military component.

I disagree with your assessment of our domestic position. The dollar is at a low, as it is periodically in a recurring cycle. A few mortgage lenders who overextended to people with marginal credit are in trouble. The vast majority of mortgages, particularly the fixed ones, are fine as long as people have jobs, an unemployment is, and has been, at near record low levels. As we have debated, ad nauseum, alternative energy sources should be pursued aggressively, as well as additional domestic reserves offshore and in the Arctic. I disagree about confronting Iran, though the effects on the energy market and our economy would be global and serious.

Not sure as to your Fabius Maximus question. Is he on our side, or the opposition's? Probably delay and attrit, in either case.

If you are so pessimistic, why do you bother? Do you really hate this country and our leadership that much? Is the solution to surrender, pull back to Fortress America, and hand the keys to the UN?

TR

I'm with TR on the economy. We're at near-full employment and our productivity remains the highest in the world. Even the national debt, which I think is too high, is still very manageable when looked at as a percentage of GDP.

Plus, the energy costs argument cuts both ways. If we pull out of Iraq and the country goes mega-Lebanon, gas isn't exactly going to get cheaper.

Furthermore, Iran is in a peculiar situation with regard to oil. While they produce a large amount of the world's crude, a lack of refineries means that they actually import a lot of their petroleum. There's a reasonable argument that says Iran can't afford to use oil prices as a weapon and any threat to is just a bluff.

More broadly, I think we do the Iran question a disservice if we frame it as a simple confront/appease choice. Without rehashing the argument from the War With Islam thread, I think there's a middle ground where we can firmly contain Iran (especially by leveraging the Iranian population's discontent with the hardline government without necessarily escalating to a full scale conflict.

We needed to "contain" the USSR and stem the spread of communism and we did to a point.

iran containment, I'm sure they're happy with that while they go on developing their nuclear capabilities.

We are not going to be able to "contain" iran from exporting terrorism on a global scale, or training terorists, or funding terrorism.

Containment works great for those countries that seek world domination, not those that would welcome being left alone to their own devices.....

Who's making those "sophisticated" IED's and supplying them to the terrorists in iraq? oh, that's iran, not much containment there I guess. Please spare me the containment strategy......

What was your day job again?:rolleyes:

As I said in the other thread, I'm including nuclear weapon denial as a cornerstone of the containment strategy.

I disagree with this completely. We've never attempted to comprehensively address Iran.

Iran is seeking regional domination and world power status. They haven't gone turtle waiting to get a nuke. Quite the opposite.

Did I say containment = status quo? No. Iran is currenlty completely uncontained. Thats the problem.

You're ascribing way too much passivity to "containment" than I mean.

When I say containment I'm talking about everything short of large-scale overt military action (unless its the only way to stop them from getting a nuke) to check Iranian influence: arming and training regional allies (under a formal anti-Iran alliance if possible), support to Iranian dissident groups (financial, diplomatic, etc), extensive and aggressive information operations to leverage Iranian public discontent, seizing weapons shipments to and from Iran, special operations against Iranian-backed terrorist groups outside Iranian territory, etc.

You know, a lot of the stuff you do on your day job. ;)

Greetings. I am not even going to try and be informed enough to have a worthwhile contribution to this thread, but if I may ask a question?

x

I was just cuious if you had a copy of A Border Passage: From Cairo to America--A Woman's Journey
by Leila Ahmed

Strangely, I thought I had read your above post somewhere? Maybe it is just a strong similarity.

Holly