This thread was closed right in the middle of me responding to this question. I spent 25 minutes composing it, I would ask the Moderator to please leave it up then lock the thread:
Unlikely. Russia has endorsed “strong action” against the terrorists by the United States, and has been the victim of Chechynan muslim terrorism as well. Moscow also is bordered by Muslim countries that were part of the old USSR to the South, and anything we can do to neutralize that menace for them you would think would be appreciated.
As an emerging superpower China certainly would benefit from renegade states being neutralized as well, and has a troublesome Muslim province on it’s eastern frontier.
**
No. The most likely suspect might have access to nukes, but it would be very difficult to get these to the United States. Sneaking box cutters onto an airline is one thing; an atomic bomb is a different animal. Pakistan and possibly Iran and Iraq have nukes, but not the delivery system to bring the warheads to American shores.
**
I hope I’m wrong but my guess is a heavy air strike against Afghanistan after producing evidence that Bin-Laden was behind the plot, and was being harbored there. I doubt there will be a ground campaign since well we saw what happened to the USSR when they invaded that country (plus it’s a landlocked country). Problem too it’s hard to “bomb a country into the stone age” that is already in the Stone Age.
Another tricky situation is that there may be Pakistani intelligence links to Bin-Laden, but attacking Pakistan is another animal altogether. Even trickier is what if the plot originated in a former Soviet state like Kazakhstan or Tajikstan, still in the Russian sphere of influence (okay that contradicts my WW3 theory, but I think this is unlikely)? Also there is the grey area of who we blow up and who we do deal with to produce the suspects.
My gut feeling is America’s response will be very very dissapointing. Our hands are very tied thanks to decades of meddling in Middle Eastern affairs to stave of the commies, and I also have a bad feeling there are too many in our own governement who have too much to personally lose in a massive assault on the Middle East.
Personally I feel wiping out the military of Iran, Iraq, The Sudan, Syria and Afganistan and replacing their governments supported by Israel expelling all the Palestinians and occupying Lebanaon would be a good start, but as you can imagine, we’d better be prepared for a long, long war, long occupation and more terror attacks.
I am ready- I don’t think we can turn back. Either we put our best foot forward and wipe out this scum once and for all, and let the devil take the hindmost, or we send the message that these bastards can get away with this with little or no consequences.