The Iraq War: Scenarios

This is a thread posted at another forum I go to, and I thought it could spark some discussion and thought:

"I'm proposing a scenario. I've thought of dozens, but this is one. First off, let me preface this by saying that all this rests on the assumption that there is a big picture that the administration believes we cannot see, and that this big picture is not extremely devious and intended for essentially ultimately negative ends. Let's proceed then, to scenario 1 of the Iraq War.

The reason we are in Iraq is to secure the oil of Iraq, but not in a bad way. The reason we want to secure the oil in Iraq is so that we can topple Iran in a few years, but not allow them to play the trump card with their oil fields, and thus tag team with the Saudis to take away Iran's leverage. After Iran, we will move on from Afghanistan into a readily unstable Pakistan, and team up with India to fuck that country up. After Pakistan, we will turn on the Saudis, having basically gotten our mitts into a deal of Middle Eastern oil, and take the Saudi government out of power if it has not already reformed.

The point of going into these countries is to remove their trump card in the event of a war we know is coming. We intend to provide regime change to the entire Middle East, ultimately in a way that serves our interests, but partially, in a way that serve the interests of decency and quality of life for Middle Easterners. What upholds most dictators and ruthless men in the Middle East, South America, and Russsia is the price of oil that its biggest consumers pay. It is their trump card. The plan, then, is to take it away bit by bit, and reform the entire Middle East such that there will be no situation, as in Saudi Arabia, where a woman is raped, and then gets strung up for reporting the attacks.

It's still extremely flawed, and most of it could largely be sugarcoating for more devious ends, but this is, in my belief the only scenario that actually makes the Administration and their supporters look like they may have decency in them in this pursuit, it's just got this White Man's Burdenesque rotteness to it that could still be cover for imperialism.

So, what about you? What's your scenario? Another interesting one for Iraq is that we are in Iraq to prevent an insurrection in Saudi Arabia..."

Thoughts? Do you feel there is a bigger scenario in the War in Iraq and the War on Terror, one of hopefully noble ends? If this scenario were in fact the case, would you support, or be less opposed to, the wars?
 
Would the administration think that the public would allow the US to invade half the bloody middle east and not rebel at all?

I would say that Iraq is just a way of having a permanent US presence in the Middle East (oil, militants etc)
 
"Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate my dad" is a fairly believable explanation. Though it says nothing on why we are still there.
 
Conspiracy theories ahoy lol

The international community would never approve of this, not to mention public opinion would probably lead to revolt. It's an absurd idea.


It's hard to predict the Iraq War because a lot of it depends on who ends up in power - you've got Guiliani on one end (advocating increasing the war effort) and Edwards on the other (advocating withdrawal), and a host of options in between (with Hillary Clinton playing a perfect median).


As far as "why I think we're there", I am 99% certain it is just an attempt to create a permanent American military presence there.
 
The international community would never approve of this, not to mention public opinion would probably lead to revolt. It's an absurd idea.

Of course, that's why, theoretically, it would take a nice cover story that has at least a bit of weight in itself to go forward(weapons of mass destruction).

And geez there's not going to be an actually revolution on anything like this. A couple of furious bloggers and Starbucks customers and a general sentiment of "this really kinda sucks" does not = revolution.

Does anyone actually think taking away the trump card of the Middle East so that Islamic Extremism has no ground to stand on and terroristic dictatorships have less power over international justice is a bad thing? Does the end justify the means in that case?
 
We've spent somewhere near one trillion dollars in Iraq. We spend about three quarters of a billion dollars on alternative energy research. This means that, if we put 25% of the funding that's currently going to the Iraq war into research for how to remove the U.S. dependence on foreign oil, it would increase the federal funding over 300 times as much.

Why is this relevant? The answer is simple: follow the money.

The reason Iran is rich is primarily because of oil revenues. The largest global purchaser of oil is still the U.S., as far as I'm aware, and thus purchasing power plays a large role.
 
My dream Iraq scenario? It goes something like this: The republicans and democrats stop all this infighting, the president is made accountable, the media stops serving as a propaganda machine for the enemy by only reporting the bad stuff. Basically, I want the politicians to let the army win the war, which I think we could have done by now if they actually tried working together.

Kinda random thing that pisses me off: We're at war, why does congress have to vote on giving the army more armor and stuff? Why was there debate? IMO that falls under the "duh" category.
 
The reason the American government has their army in Iraq obviously is so that they can have control over Iraq's huge amount of oil, as you listed on your first post.

As for my thoughts, from what I've been seeing on the news, I think the government is conspiring something big behind the public's turned back. While everyone thinks that we're "fighting a war on terror", the government seems to be plotting and planning their real plan [aka start further problems in other countries?].

From the way things are going now, it seems that the government is trying to establish a lengthy American presence there. They always say that there is a time-table for withdrawal, etc, but I highly doubt all that stuff.
 
The army can't "win". This is not well-known, but this is not a military war - there is no Berlin for al-Qaeda; they will fight until every last one of them is dead. No, this is a psychological war. The only way to "win" is to convince the Muslim people that we are not their enemy. Strangely enough, the only people of importance who seem to understand this ARE the military commanders - meanwhile, our civilian leadership is trying to undermine Iran (a major ally of the Iraqi government), and the Iraqi leadership is pretty much incompetent at dealing with the sectarian split. This is a dangerous situation, because the military is creating a relatively peaceful situation that is COMPLETELY DEPENDENT ON OUR PRESENCE. If we pull out without an adequate political and economic structure in place, Iraq will dissolve into sectarian and factional disputes within the year.

In essence, really, the neoconservatives have gotten EXACTLY what they wanted - a perfect excuse for us to maintain a strong presence in the Middle East for at least a decade, if not longer.
 
Not all Muslim's think of American's as their enemies.

And I mean, c'mon...even though America might be working for the better good by being in Iraq, I wouldn't think anyone would like outsiders just coming into your country like that. And some soldiers don't do their job properly. Watch TV shows other than CNN (MSNBC, etc), and you'll know what I mean.
 
which is only multiplied by Al-Qaeda's extremest translation of their sacred texts. its kind of sad that when religion is in play hatred spreads like wildfire and is as hard to put out as napalm.
 
I have a Canadian perspective on this matter. It might show you what the world outside America actually thinks...though we are, for all intents and purposes, 'America's retarded little brother'. It's called a 'war' because that's the only way in which the public will actually approve. ANYWAYS...

In what world can a real war involve a news report, once a month, saying "oh, by the way, 2 people were injured and 1 is now dead", especially considering the losses the other side has faced (which are considerably higher)? Also war has a strong tendancy to both sides fighting, rather than a casual death rate less than what we see in work related accidental deaths on the homefront.

The 'war' in iraq and the 'war' on terror sickens me. The premise for the invasion of Afghanistan was a single terrorism attack...hey, same as WW1 (the dumbest reason ever to go to war). I know the scale was bigger, but holy hell. Then Iraq? Seriously.

The reason to go to war in this modern world is not vendettas or because a country is 'housing, possibly, said organization'. The reason why we go to wars is like in WW2- because if you don't, everyone is fucked.

America has a history of stupid warfare: American Revolution (hey, Canadians ASKED for what america fought for and got it), Civil war with one of the main issues being slavery, WW2 (at least in Europe, entered conveniently timely enough to claim the victory), Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again... I think I have made a point here, right?


Now that you and Canada are involved in Iraq and Afghanistan (respectively) are involved, do you honestly think it is FAIR to leave? If America left Iraq or all the countries pulled out of Afghanistan...What do you think would happen? Open revolt. Chaos. No holds barred "do whatever it takes to win" scenario. Once you start, you CANNOT leave, especially when setting up a new government from a long entrenched one. America is commited. That would be like America abandonning Japan after WW2. Economically...however...America did fuck themselves by helping Japan so much. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

The middle east will always be a hotbed for war though. America cannot change this. One word: Religion. Don't go in there assuming you'll bring peace to the whole region. Go in there to bring a government that is at least reasonable to people, even if it constantly fights with its neighbours.



Sorry for the rant. I have my views, thanks for reading. I hope at least I sounded coherant and relevant, unlike 99% of the garbage I see out there.
 
Economically...however...America did fuck themselves by helping Japan so much. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

How did we fuck ourselves by helping Japan? They're currently one of our best allies. Same with the beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan.
 
We are the entire Middle East's enemy so long as we blindly support Israel, let alone illegally occupy Iraq the same way Israel illegally occupies Palestine (whichever parts they continue to keep, since the situation has been changing).
 
How did we fuck ourselves by helping Japan? They're currently one of our best allies. Same with the beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan.


They are actually one of the strongest economically and are dominating various industries at the moment that the USA used to. Competition-wise, I meant, it probably wasn't the best choice especially with the hindsight of knowing the US economy is turning to shit right now. Hell even us Canadians are beating you guys on the value of our dollar.
 
lol what

If we hadn't helped Japan, we'd have a lot more to worry about than economic competition. If we'd just screwed them, we'd be looking at another Nazi Germany, or possibly another socialist state in the Cold War. Same goes for Western Europe. The benefits of the Marshall plan far, far outweigh some economic competition - even if certain neoconservatives dream wistfully of the day when we were more than 50% of the world's GDP.

As far as our economy goes, it's still by far the strongest in the world (not counting the EU) - keep in mind that we are worth 14 trillion dollars, while Japan (the second largest economy among nations) is hanging around $4 trillion. Even if we hit a prolonged recession, it would be a long time before a single nation would be a significant contender for our position as economic superpower.
 
Back
Top