Posted on 02/23/2007 5:31:04 PM PST by blam
The danger of Pakistan is overlooked by many -- an extremely radicalized population an assassination or two away from gaining control of the country. .....a nuclear armed country. Allowing them to develop nukes (under Clinton's watch, of course) could very well turn out to be the biggest mistake we've ever made.
Regarding your post #158: Israel can't do it this time. It's a bridge too far, much too far.
Prescisely. ...and for all the reasons you stated. The U.S. is in a much better position anyway, having Iran surrounding on three sides: Iraq to the west, Afghanistan to the east, and our Naval presence in the Persian Gulf to the south. Plus we have far superior firepower, especially quantitatively. Gonna have to be us, if anyone.
It won't be us.
The whole world is against us, including the majority of our own Congress.
There's no gas in the tank for a war with Iran.
Of course if they start it, all bets are off.
They won't. Persians are not Arabs. How many Persian suicide bombers can you think of?
Exactly.
Persians are cooler customers. They're more than happy to indulge in terrorism...just strap bombs to Arab boys and send them in to blow themselves to pieces.
Persians are not going to pick a shooting fight with the US. They'll just taunt the Americans, send arms to the jihadis in Iraq (knowing full well that the Americans will not attack Teheran on account of it, because we haven't for three years and counting), and build their nuclear arms.
We have to win in Iraq. It's there or nowhere.
And we CAN'T win in Iraq under the current strategy.
We have to TAKE SIDES and arm the sides we want to win the civil war. We should arm the Sunni Kurds and the Arabist pro-Iraqi Shi'ites. This will mean a bloodbath of the Sunni Arabs, and it will mean that the pro-Iranian Shi'ites will get some swift kicks from their Arabist Shi'ite brethren (and will get slaughtered if are near Kurdistan).
Forget this "everybody shares the oil". Sunni Arabs share the grave with pro-Iranian Shi'ites. The Iraqi nationalist Arabist Shi'ites get ALL the oil wealth of the South, and the Kurds get ALL the oil wealth of the North. We establish a two-region federal state. Sunni Arab Anbar and Tikrit, what's left of them, will be subjugated rubble heaps.
It's nasty, but it will give us the boots on the ground to destroy our enemies in the country. Brutally, and with a vicious ethnic-cleansing component, but it won't be OUR troops who are doing it.
That's how we win.
Bush has ruled it out.
So instead, we lose.
Another unacceptable but inexorable result, sadly.
As I mentioned to another poster earlier on the thread we don't need "gas in the tank" (politically, especially) for an operation targeting the Iranian nuke facilities. Again, if the plan were to invade, occupy, and police the joint your assessment would be correct. But thankfully that's not the plan. The entire operation would be over before the our liberal whiners would be able to do a damn thing about it. And that's presicely what scares them -- a clear, overwhelming military success. .....success that would assuredly lessen their chances of recapturing the WH in '08.
Without going into detail I agree with your prescription for victory in Iraq. ....and that the Bush admin. simply doesn't have the stomach for it.
With three carriers headed for the Gulf, it would be a pity to spend so much money to concentrate such power there and not use it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.