If the Coalition troops pulled out of Iraq now, what would happen?

[BrainGlutton]

Iraq has an elected government now. If the Coalition troops were to pull out tomorrow, or say, in the next 2-3 months, what would happen? Would there be a civil war? Or would hostility to the government fade if it were no longer backed up by foreign troops? If there were a civil war, who would win it? And how would the departure of the troops affect Iran's relations with Iraq and with the U.S.?

[Let the machine get it.]

The US would lose all of its oil interests. Arab nations would take over all the rebuilding contracts. The Islamic leadership would create a theocracy. They would try to buy atomic bombs.

[NurseCarmen]

I think Civil war is a bet.

[Si Amigo]

Iran would become a lot bigger almost overnight.

[BrainGlutton]

I think Civil war is a bet.

But, the majority are Shi'ite, and the new government is Shi'ite dominated. So wouldn't a civil war be very short? Only the Sunni would fight the government, and they wouldn't have much luck in doing so.

[wisernow]

But, the majority are Shi'ite, and the new government is Shi'ite dominated. So wouldn't a civil war be very short? Only the Sunni would fight the government, and they wouldn't have much luck in doing so.
With the rest of the Sunni Arab world supporting, I don't think it will be a short civil war.
The civil war will likely be short only if the Shiite's decide to divide the country and give the Sunni and the Kurds their on countries.

[BrainGlutton]

With the rest of the Sunni Arab world supporting, I don't think it will be a short civil war.

Why would the rest of the Sunni world support it?! They don't wanna get into a war with Iran!!

[Kimstu]

Why would the rest of the Sunni world support it?! They don't wanna get into a war with Iran!!

No, but if a full-scale Sunni-Shi'ite war takes shape in Iraq, they'd probably help the Sunnis. As an Asia Times article (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH20Ak01.html) noted last summer,

Iraq's descent into zero-sum sectarianism has increased fears in the Arab world that it will become another Lebanon, where a gruesome 15-year civil war tore that country's intricate sectarian mosaic asunder. [...]

It is a pretense of many in Lebanon that their civil war was actually a proxy war fought on Lebanese soil. In reality the war had its roots deep in Lebanese domestic politics and history. But to some degree Lebanon did eventually become a battleground for competing regional interests. Unfortunately, there is vastly more at stake in Iraq, the most blessed Arab country in terms of natural resources and strategic geography. Iraq shares long borders with Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, all of whom it has had at least contentious relations with previously. In a civil war, the temptation for Iraq's neighbors to forcefully assert their interests would be irresistible. [...]

As professor Juan Cole, an expert in Iraq and Shi'ism, recently wrote in the Nation: "If Iraq fell into civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites, the Saudis and Jordanians would certainly take the side of the Sunnis, while Iran would support the Shi'ites." In essence, a civil war would see the eight-year Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s replayed on Iraqi territory. To complicate matters, any Kurdish success would draw in Turkey. Beyond Iraq, a civil war could destabilize the Gulf, and thereby the world economy. Sunni-Shi'ite tensions could be kindled in states like Bahrain, Kuwait and most importantly, Saudi Arabia , where an occasionally restive Shi'ite population forms a majority in the eastern part of the country (where all the oil is).

[Der Trihs]

My opinion : Either 3 way civil war ( Kurd, Sunni, Shia ), Saddam 2.0, a wider war, or general chaos Somolia style. I also see this happening if we stay, with American casualties thrown in.

[BrainGlutton]

My opinion : Either 3 way civil war ( Kurd, Sunni, Shia ), Saddam 2.0, a wider war, or general chaos Somolia style. I also see this happening if we stay, with American casualties thrown in.

Do you see any way of avoiding it, then?

[alaricthegoth]

Do you see any way of avoiding it, then?
Yes, but it involves time travel....

[Der Trihs]

Do you see any way of avoiding it, then?Like alaricthegoth said, time travel, or possible a massive asteroid strike that kills everyone in the region; can't have a war or dictator if everyone's dead.

More seriously, I think the Bush Administration has created a situation where disaster is guaranteed, short of some unforeseeable deus ex machina.

[alaricthegoth]

Like alaricthegoth said, time travel, or possible a massive asteroid strike that kills everyone in the region; can't have a war or dictator if everyone's dead.

More seriously, I think the Bush Administration has created a situation where disaster is guaranteed, short of some unforeseeable deus ex machina.
What makes the whole ratfuck ineffably poignant is the contrast to the prudent and well thought through analysis in 1991 which caused Bush I to eschew precisely the option that Bush II cheerfully undertook.

Give me a mother fucking father killer anytime. Let's hear it for the real Oedipus--at least he worked his shit out inside the family, and did not find it necessary to immolate tens of thousands while working out his problematic relationship with daddy.

[BrainGlutton]

What makes the whole ratfuck ineffably poignant is the contrast to the prudent and well thought through analysis in 1991 which caused Bush I to eschew precisely the option that Bush II cheerfully undertook.

Oh, there was more recent analysis than that. In fact, before the invasion there were no less than five government studies of the problem of post-invasion government/reconstruction of Iraq, all of which concluded it would be a daunting challenge, and all of which the Admin studiously ignored. See "Blind into Baghdad" by James Fallows, Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2004 (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200401/fallows -- subscription required for access to complete article). See also Chapter 12 of The Truth (with jokes), by Al Franken -- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525949062/sr=1-1/qid=1139350284/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0220983-2906505?%5Fencoding=UTF8.

[OtakuLoki]

I think the best example of what will happen in Iraq if Coalition forces pull out, now is not Somalia, but Afghanistan. The parallels are quite painful, to be honest.

[BrainGlutton]

I think the best example of what will happen in Iraq if Coalition forces pull out, now is not Somalia, but Afghanistan. The parallels are quite painful, to be honest.

Fragmentation of power into the hands of local warlords? I don't think so. Iraq is too compact and populous for that. The difference being, in Afghanistan, the warlords ignore the national government but do not constantly fight each other in an effort to take over the whole country. In Iraq, they would.

[OtakuLoki]

I disagree. In part because while Afghanistan did fragment, as you're saying, the various power blocs among the various tribal warlords did try to take Kabul. Repeatedly. IIRC Kabul had been under shelling from various groups for a period of years, prior to the coalition invasion.

I grant you, the presence of oil means that there will be more effort to support a strong man in Iraq, but I don't see any quick answer to things.

[BrainGlutton]

I disagree. In part because while Afghanistan did fragment, as you're saying, the various power blocs among the various tribal warlords did try to take Kabul. Repeatedly. IIRC Kabul had been under shelling from various groups for a period of years, prior to the coalition invasion.

I was referring (and assumed you were referring) to Afghanistan as it is now: Nobody trying to supplant the Kabul government, but nobody paying much attention to it either.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see any parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan. Both were recently conquered by U.S.-led military coalitions. Practically everybody in either country is a Muslim. And there the similarity ends.

Afghanistan: Isolated, mountainous, sparsely populated, agrarian-pastoral society with no valuable resources. Many languages and ethnic groups, but no active secessionist or autonomist movements -- just petty chieftains who want to be left alone to grow opium and extort their neighbors. When not being actively used by terrorists as a base of operations, or by great powers as a spheres-of-influence battleground, it has always been a country the rest of the world could afford to ignore.

Iraq: Densely populated, heavily cultivated river valley. Center of urban civilization for at least three millennia. Fiercely divided along lines of faith, ethnicity and class; might break apart entirely if the Kurds get their way. Home of some of the holiest, therefore touchiest, sites in Shi'ite Islam. Highly modernized and industrialized by Middle Eastern standards. One of the world's most important oil exporters -- meaning, anything that happens there that interferes with the oil industry is going to negatively affect the industrialized world. Strategically, pivotally located between several other major oil-producing countries -- whoever controls Iraq is in a position to threaten (and be threatened by) Iran and Saudi Arabia.

IOW, the stakes for control of Iraq are much hire, and maintaining effective control of it is much more problematic, than in Afghanistan.

[OtakuLoki]

I was referring (and assumed you were referring) to Afghanistan as it is now: Nobody trying to supplant the Kabul government, but nobody paying much attention to it either.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see any parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan. Both were recently conquered by U.S.-led military coalitions. Practically everybody in either country is a Muslim. And there the similarity ends.

Actually, the parallel that I'd meant to evoke was to the beginning of Afghanistan's recent (past 15-20 years) problems. Beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR, allegedly for reasons to remove a corrupt autocracy - more realistically and attempt at realpolitik and to gain a foothold in the Persian Gulf.

When the Soviets found that they had bitten off more than they could chew - esp. with multiple, and conflicting, guerilla movements being supported by governments outside the borders of the conquered territory - they left, after establishing a supposed stable, local government.

Which promptly imploded into 10-15 years of civil warfare.

The only difference I see between that scenario, and what I expect to happen in Iraq if the coalition pulls out tomorrow is that the body count in Iraq will be orders of magnitude higher, the time frame of instability will be shorter, because of the natural resources in the area, and - unlike Afghanistan - there will be no way that any foreign peacekeeping mission will want to touch the area to try to impose some stability.

You and I are looking at two rather different time frames, I'm afraid. I don't disagree with your reasoning, per se - just looking further into the past for my parallel.

(Of course, I've felt since the early nineties that the US had a moral responsibility for fostering the chaos in post-abandonment Afghanistan - that we were ignoring. Certainly I never felt that the Taliban was any kind of legitimate government.)

[BrainGlutton]

Actually, the parallel that I'd meant to evoke was to the beginning of Afghanistan's recent (past 15-20 years) problems. Beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR, allegedly for reasons to remove a corrupt autocracy - more realistically and attempt at realpolitik and to gain a foothold in the Persian Gulf.

Nitpick: Your assessment of Soviet motives is fair -- but they did not invade Afghanistan, they were invited in to prop up a purely home-grown Communist revolution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan#Soviet_intervention_in_Afghanistan_.281978-1992.29) It was more like Soviet support for Castro's Cuba than the Soviet occupation of Poland. At least, it started out that way.

[OtakuLoki]

Fair cop. I hope you won't be offended if I harbor grave reservations about the Soviet Union's having fostered the revolutionaries, though.

[BrainGlutton]

Fair cop. I hope you won't be offended if I harbor grave reservations about the Soviet Union's having fostered the revolutionaries, though.

You mean, you suspect Soviet agents instigated the revolution? It would be just like them -- their duty, in fact, by their lights -- but I've never encountered the theory before.

[OtakuLoki]

I certianly don't have evidence for it. And most of this thinking is based heavily on what I recall from the time, not reading since then.

And I'm not trying to paint the Soviets as being unilaterally evil. Mistaken, yes. Eager to spread the Revolution, yes. Having done actions that were evil, or resulted in evil happening, sure. But not trying to create misery and deprivation.

At the time, it seemed to me to simply be a continuation of the proxy fights of the Cold War. For which there's more than enough guilt to go around, no matter where you were.

[BrainGlutton]

At the time, it seemed to me to simply be a continuation of the proxy fights of the Cold War. For which there's more than enough guilt to go around, no matter where you were.

Agreed. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan could also be compared to American intervention in Vietnam, to defend the South Vietnamese government from rebels at that government's invitation. Vietnam was not important in itself, except as a battleground in the Cold War.

The American intervention in Iraq, OTOH, cannot be justified as a response to any real global geopolitical threat.

[alaricthegoth]

The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan could also be compared to American intervention in Vietnam

except that in many ways, things were never better in afghanistan than they were during the Soviet occcupation (certainly for women)--the collateral damage from the ongoing resistance aside....