What would happen in Iraq if the US pulled out ??

[kentuck]

Would it really be worse than it is now? Would there still be carbombs? Would there still be the roadside bombs, the IED's? Would Iraqis be killing other Iraqis if they were not buddies with the Americans? Realistically, would there be more violence or less violence if America were not there? Isn't most of the violence directly connected to the presence of the American forces, even the violence against the Iraqi police trainees?

[bemildred]

1. Fewer suicide bombings? Less violence?

Increased oil exports?

Elsewhere we might see:

More alive US soldiers?
Reduced budget deficits?
Reduced anti-american sentiment worldwide?

Just a few wild guesses.

[knowbody0]

2. they would work it out themselves

the attacks are directed at us, and those who support our occupation and plundering.

[MichiDem]

5. I wonder about that

it seems alot of the attacks are aimed at their own fellow citizens.

[knowbody0]

14. citizens who support the occupation and plundering

of resources are the targets of these attacks.

[kentuck]

18. ..and who accept the American dollars to be policemen...

...the same dollars that we are sending over there by the tons and that are stolen by the billions. They are friends of the American dollar - not the Americans. We should not confuse the two...

[MichiDem]

43. It just seems

that the attacks are often random.

[rfkrfk]

29. the attacks are all directed at us, except for the ones that aren't

there is increasing gang on gang fighting.
Sharks, Jets, Crypts, Bloods, Skins, Shirts, al Queda,
whatever

[JHBowden]

3. Someone would take power.

If a government needs 150K American troops to prop it up, there is probably a reason. Who would fill the power void? My bet would be a leader of Sunni rebels.

[Maple]

4. What happened in Vietnam

when the US pulled out?

[Roland99]

6. Khmer Rouge.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Think you got your countries confused

The Khmer Rouge were not operating in Vietnam. In fact, the much-inveighed against Vietnam "bloodbath" never happened.

Oh, and the bloody reign of the Khmer Rouge in CAMBODIA was finally stopped when the People's Army of Vietnam invaded that country and deposed Pol Pot.

[Roland99]

23. That's what I get for staying up too late

;)

[progressive_realist]

21. Khmer Rouge were in Cambodia,

not Vietnam, were they not?

When we pull out of Iraq, one of three things will happen:
1) A couple more years of fighting follow, until one faction gains enough power to take control of the entire country. This is what happened in Vietnam.
2) A few more years of sectarian fighting follow, until the country splits into two or three smaller nations. Call this the Yugoslavia option.
3) So much fighting takes place that the civil society infrastructure collapses, and no further government is possible. Call this the Afghanistan or Somalia option.

If we stay, the fighting continues indefinitely until we withdraw, at which point one of the above options happens. The only real question is whether our staying for longer makes option #1 any more likely than option #3. And even that is of dubious worth, since the only faction conceivably strong enough to take control of the entire country is pro-Iranian and anti-American.

I don't see any benefit whatsoever to either Iraq or the U.S. from our continued presence there.

[Kraklen]

39. No, the Khmer Rouge was caused by the US being in Vietnam.

And bombing Cambodia. Not by the US pulling out.

[CitrusLib]

41. As I understand it...

When the US pulled out, South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese, we declared victory and the Domino Theory was proven false. The North Vietnamese had told us a decade or more previously they were not in bed with the Chinese or Russians, but we didn't believe them because John Foster Dulles (now being channelled by Donald "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Rumsfeld) kept repeating at every speech that if South Vietnam fell, the rest of Southeast Asia and hence the world would swiftly follow. The North Vietnamese wanted a Vietnam free of foreign influence, namely the French, the U.S., etc. They were nationalists more than communists.

Recommended reading: March to Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman. Available at most half decent libraries.

[Poiuyt]

7. I think there would be a quick civil war and then it would settle down

to a stable country. I don't know which faction would take control or how friendly they would be to the West.

[TankLV]

8. Same thing if we stay - without more US casualties.

Civil war either way.

Stay - later.
Leave - sooner.

I say we get it all over with.

Bring our soldiers home NOW!

There is no good reason for staying.

None that I've heard/read so far.

[MidwestTransplant]

9. Civil war and the country would split up under UN guidance.

[BayouBengal07]

10. A couple scenarios

icluding civil war, which might encourage otherwise neutral countries to put troops on the ground, thus reducing the burden on us

only thing is, like Lebanon and Somalia, it would be seen as a victory for OBL. But then our presence is already a recruiting tool for terrorists, so...

[Chan790]

12. Shiites

My guess is that the 90% of the population that is Shiite or Kurd would band together and seize the country. The Shiites would rule Iraq with an autonomic self-rule agreement for the Kurds in the north. You have to remember that the Shiites and Kurds don't really like each other but they don't have a lot of contact, on the other hand they share two common enemies. The Turks and the Sunnis.

[kentuck]

16. I think you are close...

I think it would turn into an Iranian-style theocracy...very brutal and backwards, but more stable than at present. Better or worse??

[Chan790]

22. Worse

I don't think it will get that far though. Iraq's shiites are more secular than their Iranian counterparts and as a moderate and the leader of the Shiites in Iraq I don't think Sistani would stand for a Theocracy. (Iran recognizes his sovereignty over the Shiites in Iraq so I doubt they'd go against his direct order either). He could have pushed for more theocratic state to this point and has actually pushed against it.

[Jose Diablo]

31. I don't think Sistani would end-up being the Shiite faction leader

Sadr, IMO, would emerge as the leader of first eastern Iraq, then Iran, then what we now know of as Saudi Arabia.

I say this because Sistani is a Shiite, but not a firebrand. Sadr on the other hand, if the fundamentalists are really angry and they are, will want blood, thus Sadr will probably get the nod to cleanse the Islamic world of western civilization.

[kentuck]

13. So, is America the solution or the problem ??

I wonder ?

[knowbody0]

17. absolutely the problem

[Chan790]

19. hmm.

It depends on your POV:

If you're a liberal, you'd probably say that we're the problem and we're encouraging the growth of a new generation of terrorists.

If you're a conservative, you'd say we're the solution and we need to fight the war there to not fight it here.

If you're a moderate or a pragmatist, you'd say that we're the a large part of the problem but we can't afford to cut and run because the situation would result in worse calamity than if we'd never gotten involved. *The Pottery Barn position. We broke it so now we own this mess.*

[Chan790]

20. I'm definately in the first category

We're wasting resources I'd rather send to Waziristan in North Pakistan to sweep it since we pretty much figure that's where OBL is. We may not catch him there but he's more likely to be caught if he has to keep moving or if we keep killing his liutenants and inner circle.

[ElectroPrincess]

30. Why can't we leave? The PEOPLE of Iraq want us to leave...

Us Americans are so damn "full of ourselves" that we think that Iraqis are *too damn stupid* to sort out this mess.

Tell you what, we do NOT belong in their country. We are treating them like children because we all know he hidden agenda = OIL.

If we genuinely cared about The Iraqi People we would provide guidance later when requested, but now, LEAVE! The forgoing is the best case scenario.

However, I sadly believe that we won't leave until the USA is bankrupt (save for the fat contracting companies) and we are KICKED-OUT. We are repeating the lesson of Vietnam all over again just to satisfy our Arrogant Leaders' Egos.

[confludemocrat]

34. I think it's 87% say they want us out (n/t)

[paulk]

47. what poll are you quoting?

does that 87% want us out now, or in some specific timeframe? Or some specific sequence of events?

I see this 87% quoted a lot, I would really like to see the source.

[confludemocrat]

48. Couldn't find but one poll cited herein says 69% in Jan 05

Couldn't find where I read that, but see http://www.comw.org/pda/0501br17append.html for a poll putting the figure at 69% as of January, so 87% per cent now would not be surprising.

[deadparrot]

15. The same thing that will eventually happen with our troops there.

Mass chaos. Civil war.

Same result, just accelerated.

[Sir Jeffrey]

24. yup...that's why we shouldn't have went in n/t

[Mountainman]

25. Frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn. What would happen to the U.S. if we

stayed in a war where we continue to make more enemies around the world.

Iraq is headed for a civil war. Let it happen and deal with the consequences.

[rhett o rick]

26. Sooner or later we are going to have to cut-and-run like Vietnam.

Mite as well be sooner. The war on terror will not be won in Iraq.

[kentuck]

27. "cut and run" sounds so Republican....

Sorry, I think a "planned withdrawal" sounds better. The first rule of hole digging.

[rhett o rick]

46. "Planned Withdrawal" is rhetoric. nt

[undeterred]

28. It would still be a mess, but it wouldn't be our mess

and eventually they would sort it out.

[xchrom]

32. civil war.

but i think it has to happen that way -- BECAUSE of bush and blair.

the shiites and the kurds have probably needed to have a go at the sunni's for a long time.

that being said -- to me, it seems that there are three countries in present day iraq.

[kentuck]

33. And who would win the Civil War ?

The Shiites are the majority. Would they defeat the Sunnis?

[Donna Zen]

35. According to Ritter

There is a reason that the Sunnis have generally held power in Iraq, they are a more cohesive faction. The Shia are very divided although currently Sistani has the gravitas.

The Kurds want their country which Turkey vigorously opposes. Besides, they too are divided and a secondary power struggle would erupt there.

Between bush's stupid "stay the course" and "get out yesterday" there is a narrowing spectrum of solutions, including replacing the American troops with a mix of Iraqi troops and troops from other countries with a vested interested (think moderate Arabs--think oil--think everyone in the world) in seeing a stable Iraq. We need to request the neighboring countries to form a meaningful contact group that assures them an authoritative voice. <-----should have been done months before 3/03.

For those who propose "get out yesterday" and let the civil war begin, are you prepared to watch a world economy based on oil jolted into crisis? How about losing your job? How about watching emerging nations struggling to feed their populations? For as surely as we sit here typing the oil will take our place as the new target.

A snip from Juan Coles blog regarding the intricacies of what we paint in broad-brush terms:

While the Ba'ath used tribal proxies everywhere, they generally recruited "direct hires" in the security services from a much narrower base in specific communities. Nearly all Turkmen who had significant positions in Ba'ath security were from Tel Afar. Tel Afar had land conflicts with the Kurdish Mirani tribe - who were allies of Mustafa Barzani - and backed the government in the Kurdish wars of the 60's and 70's. Saddam subsequently recruited heavily in Tel Afar for Maktab al-Amin positions because many of them speak Kurdish. Tel Afar will remain an insurgent stronghold because it is historically as much a Ba'athist city as any city of the same size in al-Anbar.

The Turkmen-Kurdish conflict in Kirkuk is a little different... A Turkish special forces team attempted to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk in July 2003, in coordination with Turkmen in the city. I'm convinced Kurdish abduction, torture and abuse of Turkmen is intended to intimidate alleged collaborators with Turkey rather than the insurgency.

http://www.juancole.com/

But since bush has no intentions of leaving, what is to be done? IMHO, we need pressure for a change in course that will eventually get us the hell out. We need to demand the answers and continue to expose the lies. Finally, consider two well-known quotes: 1) Be careful what you wish for and to cite a witch 2) these things must be done delicately.

[confludemocrat]

49. So the assumption here is unlike whites, they can't run own country

Stop this paternalistic flimflammery and get real. These people don't need our bloody and incompetent form of disorder to be self-determining. We should be fired for this mess, failed, blew it. Now you suppose we deserve a better, second chance. Face it this country (The U.S.) is neither internally healthy enough nor competent to deal with the mess we have created. It is not always and forever about troops and more troops. Before we brought chaos to the place and before Saddam Hussein and before the british mandate and before the Ottoman Empire these people didn't need us. This is a highly civilized country. Leave them the fuck alone. Just prepare to make them whole again if they ask for the resources. Others have tried to impose their "order": Belgians in central Africa (Rwandan genocide and Mobutu and Civil War followed) are recent examples. We are leaving something that can still be sorted out. BY THEM and not politicians from Washington, with their dishonest motives.

[donsu]

36. the Iraqis would fix and have 24/7 clean water and electricity

food producers would go about their business

kids could go to school and back home all in one piece

hospitals could open without fear

they would never have to hear again a helicopter hover over their houses rattling their brains.

gosh, the list is endless

[Singular73]

37. It would be chaos

As hard-left as I am, I KNOW we cannot pull out.

Its not fair to the Iraqi people.

The fundementalists would turn that place into a hellhole, even worse than it is now.

You don't have to support the war, or the premise of the war, in order to understand that the troops have to stay.

What we need is a change in leadership, someone to draw in the international community, and get some blue helmets in there, in large quantity until the Iraqi forces are trained (will take years).

The main problem with "Iraqi Forces" that noone seems to be willing to talk about is this:

Imagine someone invaded your country, created a puppet government, then attempted to get citizens of said country to train in the military so they can fire on and kill THEIR OWN PEOPLE.

Its ludicrous.

[dajoki]

38. it is chaos

but you are right, we broke it and now we have to fix it:shrug:

[confludemocrat]

52. Unbelievable

here is the centerpiece of your argument it seems

"The fundementalists would turn that place into a hellhole, even worse than it is now."

It's their country, who are we to pass value judgements on what they end up with. That is absurd. First of all, as if it could be much worse than it is now. second, the best we could do is get out now. We invaded them. Illegally. We have destroyed the place, but now we need to stay to stop fundamentalism? Sheesh.

[sakabatou]

40. Uh, well... there'd be few to none soldiers killed...

and that's about it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

42. Well look at the state of Afghanistan. It would be similar, I think. But

of course we still have forces in Afghanistan too. A few anyway.

[Donna Zen]

44. Outside of Kabul

Afghanistan is run by war lords/drug lords.

In many villages the women are in burkas.

In Kabul, NATO forces keep things somewhat quiet, but Karzi is heavily guarded.

We have not heard the last of Afghanistan.

[GreenPartyVoter]

45. No I am sure we have not. The Taliban wil resurge or the warlords

will continue to rule. But democracy? Not gonna happen.

[nadinbrzezinski]

50. I am betting on a violent, sharp and short civil war

as the vacuum is filled

[OneTwentyoNine]

51. Ummmm....we could stop spending $100 BILLION PER YEAR...

To make defense contractors filty rich and getting kids killed over Oil.