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Originally Posted by Plantman
Hey B,
I agree with your commentary, however, I must ask, do you think that the Iraqi oil supply is safe now , with all the insurgents who can strike anywhere, anytime?
From the outside looking in, I would say yes. It would make no sense to invade the country,remove a dictator, endure thousands of lost soldiers and Iraqi civilians, not to fortify and protect the oil infrastructure.
Or else they would have done it by now.
I see a permanent military outpost, or "civilian" contractors guarding those pipelines for the unforseeable future.
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Iragi oil is far less secure now than it has been at any time over the entire course of Saddam's 30-year absolute dictatorship.
One course we could have taken would be to watch the UN sanctions continue to crumble as more and more French, german, and Russian politicians dipped their wicks into Saddam's pool of oil bribery.
Another would have been to give him a BJ and fawn over him like we did the Shah of Iran and the Saudi Princes. That has worked very effectively in Saudi Arabia. Not quite so effective in Iran.
In any case, Saddam would have been uncontrolled, allowing him to resume his long-stated ambition of controlling 3/4 of the planetary source of petroleum. Saddam in control of the world economy would have been interesting.
It was cheaper and easier to take him out while he was weak and had no allies. Good riddance.
I figure it will take Iraq 8-10 more years to become a stable democracy (if they don't devolve into civil war). Saddam hosted terrorist training camps for a couple dozen years. He also formally trained a 15,000 man 5th column force. Those groups comprise the bulk of the current insurgency. Until they are dissuaded or killed, they will keep Iraq unsettled and dangerous. We are killing them at a rate of a couple hundred per month and jailing another couple hundred per month. We are killing or capturing even more untrained new recruits. It will take a long time to go through them all. Hopefully Iraqis themselves will take a greater role as their government gains democratic legitimacy.
One thing is certain, there is no formal training for replacement of Saddam's cadre. They have no safe haven anywhere. They have no external state sponsorship. They have no large-scale resupply. They have support limited to their tribal origins and a few non-state foreign groups. There is NO broad support for them. Those are key differences from Viet Nam.
Bot