[mhking]

calls for much more strategery than a simple flogging like desert storm.

Agreed. The only place where you and I disagree on this is the timeframe. I think it's much sooner. I think the planning for this has gone on for much longer than people realize, and that assets have been in motion for far longer than anyone realizes.

[Southack]

"The only place where you and I disagree on this is the timeframe. I think it's much sooner. I think the planning for this has gone on for much longer than people realize, and that assets have been in motion for far longer than anyone realizes."

You may very well be right, but I'll be surprised if it happens this year (although the "hit" on Abu Nidal inside Baghdad offers a bit more support to your timeframe than mine, I'll admit).

Heck, I don't even think that Iraq will be the next nation hit (assuming that politics don't override pure military strategy, anyway). We've pretty well got Iraq contained. We're boarding the ships that stop in their harbor, we've got their borders blockaded to some useful degree (though not airtight, obviously), we've got most of the free world embargoing at least the most deadly exports to Iraq, and we fly our fighter jets over their airspace every day, controlling their own skies.

Moreover, Iraq isn't testing long-range missiles and Iraq isn't building a nuclear reactor.

But BOTH North Korea as well as Iran are testing long-range missiles and building nuclear reactors.

We do have North Korea bottled up to some degree, but Iran is wide open right now.

That's where I'd hit first if I was calling the shots. Take out their reactor projects. Take out their long-range missiles. Take out their oppressive regime. Stop their funding of Palestinian terrorists.

Yup, if it was up to me, I'd be slamming Iran right around January as the weather cools off a bit in the Persian desert, saving cold North Korea for the Summer...