Military solutions vs non-military problems
This isn't about who has better guns, more bombers, or bigger phallic symbols.
The Iraqi army have considerably fewer resources than in the Gulf War in the 1990s, but this time around they aren't trying to hold territory that doesn't belong to them, they are defending their own home towns from foreigners with an alien culture. But the Iraqi military is one of the least of our worries. Lets say that (as likely) they are defeated easily (a fairly relative concept when we're talking about the messy business of war). We still have to deal with Ba'athist civilian militias who have been trained and indoctrinated in suicide attack techniques; Kurdish separatists who don't like Bush's promise to keep them as part of Iraq; Shiites who want majority rule; Islamists who want a religious republic to replace Saddam; civilians suspicious of a Western power messing around with their government; Turks who want to stop Kurds from getting any power; competing resistance leaders underground in Iraq and fled to exile, none of whom like each other; wannabe martyrs whose families get killed in the invasion; and there still might be those weapons of mass destruction hidden somewhere (if they're not a figment of paranoia). And that's just off the top of my head.
Given the dismal record of how the administration has dealt with this type of thing in Afghanistan, we might be looking for them to start a war somewhere else to distract people from the mess.
And so far I'm not even looking at things outside Iraq. "Who's next" Paranoia and "I told you so about those imperialist Americans" all over the Middle East. More defections among our ever-decreasing list of allies. Al-Qaida seemingly ignored outside the Iraq focus... Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
Will Americans be safer if we win this? It doesn't look so.
The Iraqi army have considerably fewer resources than in the Gulf War in the 1990s, but this time around they aren't trying to hold territory that doesn't belong to them, they are defending their own home towns from foreigners with an alien culture. But the Iraqi military is one of the least of our worries. Lets say that (as likely) they are defeated easily (a fairly relative concept when we're talking about the messy business of war). We still have to deal with Ba'athist civilian militias who have been trained and indoctrinated in suicide attack techniques; Kurdish separatists who don't like Bush's promise to keep them as part of Iraq; Shiites who want majority rule; Islamists who want a religious republic to replace Saddam; civilians suspicious of a Western power messing around with their government; Turks who want to stop Kurds from getting any power; competing resistance leaders underground in Iraq and fled to exile, none of whom like each other; wannabe martyrs whose families get killed in the invasion; and there still might be those weapons of mass destruction hidden somewhere (if they're not a figment of paranoia). And that's just off the top of my head.
Given the dismal record of how the administration has dealt with this type of thing in Afghanistan, we might be looking for them to start a war somewhere else to distract people from the mess.
And so far I'm not even looking at things outside Iraq. "Who's next" Paranoia and "I told you so about those imperialist Americans" all over the Middle East. More defections among our ever-decreasing list of allies. Al-Qaida seemingly ignored outside the Iraq focus... Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
Will Americans be safer if we win this? It doesn't look so.