Should We Bomb Syria and Iran?

"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...
"Tom Cooper" wrote in message
news
Remove a crazy dictator that was terrorizing everybody - including his
closest relatives, was responsible for three wars, for deaths of
hundreds
of
thousands (foremost Arabs and Iraqis), for disturbing the peace and
spreading the hatred, for disturbing prosperity and the development of
the
whole region, and negative influence on the world economy, and somebody
that
is responsible for Iraq - a prosperous country at the time he rose to
power - laying in ruins now. There couldn't have been a better "excuse"
for
a war against it, and such an open "confession" couldn't have been
misused
by the Arab media either.

Any American president has to justify sending troops abroad and into
combat by referring to the defense of US interests. None of your points
above, except the vague "negative influence on the world economy",
matches that criterion. It is extremely difficult, borderline impossible,
for an US president to argue that he has to send troops abroad on a
moral crusade to save people from evil leaders who are oppressing
them. And for a /Republican/ president, to do so while he has declared
the "War on Terrorism", would be political suicide.

I must admit your commentary surprises me pretty much. Namely, exactly this
was very much possible in 1995 and 1999, just for example: there was no oil
nor WMDs on Kosovo and Serbia...

So, to keep it short, I completely disagree with the theory that "rethoric
about the evil Sadam" would have "not be enough" to get the USA involved
against Iraq. It functioned already several times and it would function once
again, and the US public was "conditioned" on the war with Iraq already
since 10 years, so many would rather expect this nonsence finally to find an
end.

And, I would always prefer it to the "theory of WMDs", which I can't 100%
support by available evidence.

Then, the fact is this: the US admin couldn't show 100% confirmed facts
about the WMDs either before or after the invasion of Iraq. If I'm to ask,
they'll sometimes even find the last remaining caches of the Iraqi WMDs -
so, in 10, 15, or 20 years. But, this will not matter any more. They don't
have them right now - when they need them the most. However, there was
plenty of evidence for Saddam's brutality: one could, just like in 1995, and
in 1999, have shown the photos and videos of these - of which there were
realy plenty. And, once in Iraq one could - just like this was done - have
also shown all the evidence for massacres and atrocities. THAT would have
also be a powerful card in the US hands (which was _never_ really played: in
fact, only very few networks have reported about all the mass graveyards
found there in Iraq so far etc.): in such case one could drag such people
like those from al-Jazeera and say, "we went in for this purpose, and we
found the purpose, you can take a nice and in-depth look..."

The only "unpleasant" remarks one would get in response to such
argumentation would be, "and, why don't we do it somewhere else too?", to
which one could then easily respond, "but we do", and show the evidence.

Not sure about that. Foreign muslim fighters are certainly there,
and those have guerilla warfare or urban terrorism experience
acquired in Afghanistan or Chechnia would have a natural leadership
of any Iraqi recruits, even if the latter have served in the regular army.

Emanuel, I've meanwhile had even a few chats with those that returned back
home - pretty desillusioned, btw. As one of them said - the guy originally
went to Iraq to "fight the US infidels and defend the Iraqi Arabs" - as soon
as they arrived, the local "Mukhbarat" (designating one of the Iraqi secret
services) operationals has put them under their command and were forcing
them to all the time declare they're "fighting for Saddam" etc. He did not
want to fight for Saddam but for Iraqis, so he disliked this, and was pretty
glad to suddenly find out there were "other Arabs fighting Americans" there
too. He joined them and remained with that group for the next few months
before returning back home - once he realized the matter is a lost one, as
not even the Iraqis wanted to support them...

But many Iraqis will regard the USA as the country that has starved
and bombed them regularly since 1991, has now invaded and
occupied the country, and is violating the rights of Arabs and
muslims at every step. I think there are sufficient Iraqi recruits
to keep these organisations running for a long time, even if they
are (and they can hardly be more) only a tiny fraction of the
population.

The "many Iraqis" here are foremost the Ba'athists: as said, one just can't
put all of 3 millions of them in front of a wall. Nevertheless, this does
not mean that there are "many recruits" there any more (to actively
participate in the fighting): on the contrary, from what I hear there are
hardly any.

As for the role of Ba'ath and security force remnants, they will be
there, but not in a dominating role; probably quite small because
discredited in the eyes of muslim radicals or Arab nationalists.
Looking at precedents, it is logical to assume that the Iraqi armed
opposition is hugely varied in its composition, with deep hostility
between different groups; if the USA would leave the country they
would at once start to fight among each other.

The role of the former security system is that it is/was so elaborate, so
huge, and so "secret", that most of it was still not dismantled. In fact,
the bases used right now to fight the US and other troops in Iraq were not
even touched by 13 years of bombardments. That means that there are still
plenty of weapons caches, safe houses, hidden supply depots etc., and that
there are still enough guides, which are being used to support the current
war of terror on the occupators. Regardless of them being completely
discredited in the eyes of the local population, this local population has
learned in the past 40 years not to take them lightly: consequently, they
can also always count with support due to sheer fear they cause.

And so, we're back on the "hearts & minds" topic: unless the Iraqis can be
ascertained that the the US troops will not left them alone to tackle with
their former butchers (something the USA so far COMPLETELY failed to make
clear to the Iraqi public) - which remind them every night that they are
still very much present - there will be no widespread open support for
foreign actions inside Iraq.

Then, the actual mistake of the White House's strategy in this one was that
it fought the IIIPGW the way it thought it should have fought the IIPGW,
and - as we've seen so many times in the past - this just can't function.

Tom Cooper
Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php
and,
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat:
http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...hp/title=S6585