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Originally Posted by 88-31-10  I'll admit to my ignorance regarding the repercussions of an "immediate withdrawal". And I don't advocate such a withdrawl. My criticisms are of the events leading to the run up of the war and the poor decisisons made in response to the events. If you don't mind sharing, what do you think the repercussions will be?..... |
Keep in mind that Iraqi security forces continue graduating new personnel and more provinces are being turned over to Iraqi control as time goes on. The Iraqis even have their own fledgling air force operational. The growing ability to deal with their own security is behind the current drawdown of our forces which is supposed to total 42,000 by July. Also on the table is cutting the tours from 15 months to 12.
With that said, many experts agree that if we leave before the Iraqis are up to the task of taking care of insurgents on their own the result would be escalation of violence. The competing terrorist groups seek to collapse the government and take control of the region. I suspect that you already know this.
The question is why we should we care. One reason is the oil. We don’t buy much of our oil from the Middle East but their production affects world prices and that does affect us. They can simply withhold Iraq oil from the market and hurt us economically. More important is the oil is a resource that terrorist groups can use to finance further attacks on us. Free run of the area allows them to build training camps and recruit locals to grow their ranks. (They have some very ugly ways to encourage recruitment BTW) It makes no sense to me to give any terrorist group the opportunity to enhance itself in any way and that is what they will do given the chance. It just means our battles, wherever they are, will be longer and more bloody. There is also the propaganda victory terrorists will claim by sending our forces packing because we have no stomach for the fight. Giving the perception of weakness is not in our best interest.
Then there is the other little pet project of Islamic radicals, destroying Israel. Given the free run of the region they will get around to attacking Israel and we will end up getting dragged into that mess. In any event I don’t see any long term gain for us by abandoning Iraq. I don’t believe they will simply fight among themselves and leave us alone.