What will happen in Iraq if/when we leave?

[OlderButWiser]

An immediate, complete and total withdrawal is what many would like to see. What would be the positive and negative results of that withdrawl. Obviously one of the positives would be no more US servicemen dieing there but would deaths of Iraqi's increase? And would that be temporary or go on for awhile. Just wondering.

[WinkyDink]

1. We are never leaving.

[pocoloco]

6. The only thing we are bring home is the oil!

And of course our wounded and kia.

[OlderButWiser]

14. Are we pumping any significant amount

of oil currently? I ask because I do not know.

[Toots]

22. Currently about two million barrels a day

Supposed to go up to four million barrels a day. When Saddam was in Power OPEC had Iraq limited to one million barrels a day.

[OlderButWiser]

24. Well now...

...all that extra oil sure is helping us out at the pump, isn't it?

[Toots]

26. If you consider Exxon to be "us" then I would say hell yes

Exxon's Net Profit for the last seven hundred days has been over one hundred million dollars a day and gas prices keep going up. $100 million per day of "in the pocket" profits is just not enough.

[Retired AF Dem]

25. That isn't written in stone

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/05/news/international/iraq_oil/index.htm

[NC_Nurse]

2. Hard to say.

Why don't we find out?

[cigsandcoffee]

3. That's up to the Iraqis.

I'll admit that we did much to break their country - but after a bull is let loose in a china shop, keeping the bull in the store while trying to rebuild doesn't make much sense.

[papau]

4. The tribal heads will take over, as they always have in Arab lands n/t

n/t

[Toots]

5. We did not build fourteen "enduring" bases and the largest embassy on earth to just up and leave

America will have a presence in Iraq for decades unless ordered out by the Iraqi government and we all know it is but a puppet government to the USA.

[OlderButWiser]

9. Are you suggesting that is how...

...it will be with a Democrat in office after November 2008?

[Toots]

13. Absolutely

Oil is a National Security concern whether Democrats like it or not..We are in Iraq to stay. You do know it was Democrats that backed very strongly the first "Benchmark" which was the "Hydrocarbon act" or in Layman's terms the stealing of Iraq's oil.

[Neshanic]

7. Complete and utter chaos that will destabilize the entire region.

Vietnam but with lots of oil fires, and their own version of killing fields.

Sorry, that's my take.

[Toots]

8. What is your take on what is occuring there now

A Sunday picnic??

[Neshanic]

18. Absolutely not. It's a nightmare. Just remember the last days

before we withdrew from Vietnam, and multiply by an unimaginable factor. Divisions of people who are rounded up for collaborating with the "occupiers". When the boogy man leaves, historically their friends do not fare well. Civil war ramped up to possibly spill into the quieter North, the Turks becoming involved, a race for the borders by everyone with no axe to grind, and general mayhem that will make what going on now, a placid walk in the park. A new military strongman installed, that we may or may not like. Years of turmoil.

[Az]

10. Its our sense of superiority that makes us think they are helpless

And its that sort of thinking that piss off a great number of people in the world. This is where civilization was practically founded. I think they might be able to manage once we get our self satisfied butts out of there.

[TexasProgresive]

11. It doesn't matter when we leave but from that day the Tigris

and Euphrates rivers will run red with the blood of Iraqis of whatever stripe. Iraq is an artificial construct and only a strong man like Saddam could ever hold it together. BTW this prediction doesn't depend on us leaving- that could happen with our presence. And that would be bad because our guys would be every bodies target.

It's going to be hard to withdraw - I can't see any really safe strategy for withdrawal. That's not to say I don't want us out of Iraq, it's just that I don't see how. For rapid redeployment much equipment would have to be abandoned at great cost to the American tax payers. I would hope that it would be destroyed rather then allowed to feed the inevitable civil war.

[OlderButWiser]

16. Is it possible that the best solution

would be to divide Iraq into separate countries, not unlike what happened in Yugoslavia?

[Az]

19. There is no safe strategy for withdrawal

There was no safe strategy for entry. But it is our amazing ego that insists that we must be the ones to come up with a solution for their nation. THEIR NATION. We screwed it up enough.

[OlderButWiser]

21. What you say scares me...

...no matter what we do there will be an awful outcome. Should we just do what is best for us?

[TexasProgresive]

36. A possible solution would be a multinational peace keeping force

made up of troops from muslim states in the region but espcially form say Indonesia who have no real dog in the fight. And yes this would include the Syrians and Iranis.

[OlderButWiser]

38. They don't seem to have any problem...

...blowing their fellow countrymen up. I wonder if they would have any problem killing a multi-national peace keeping force too, even if they were made up of Muslims?

[TexasProgresive]

40. It might be a bit different in that they speak the same language

and collateral damage could not be construed as Christian on Muslim - but I don't have any real hope for even this to work. I find it odd that every point for not invading Iraq has come true and worse and yet the supporters can grasp at any straw as to how great it is that we got ourselves in this mess.

[NoPasaran]

12. Hell on earth

So---no change from the current situation.

[jody]

15. IMO tribal chiefs will quickly assert control and three new Iraqi governments will emerge. Over 60%

marriages in Iraq are between first or second cousins so tribal fealty is strong.

The Kurds, Shia, and Sunni may evolve some loose federation but IMO the Sunni will be left with little oil.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. It would be settled by the Iraqis and the countries around them.

Perhaps the UN or another international body would be called in as arbiters.

I would think that some sort of loose federation of the three areas would be installed.

But, who knows?

The Americans will leave sooner or later. Either forced out by the American people (sooner) or by the Iraqi people (later).

The "war" is lost and any hope of an outcome favorable to the empire builders is impossible.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. Short sharp increase in violence followed by peace. nt.

[Cass]

23. I'm thinking that it will probably be disasterous no matter what we do.

If we stay there's violence, if we leave there's violence. Either way its a disaster. We cannot stay where we are not wanted and we cannot successfully referee a civil war.

I'm worried that we could end up with a situation like the one created in Afghanistan in the 80's following the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict. Radical extremism took hold in the form of the Taliban. Iraq could easily go down that same road without effective post war planning.

[Neshanic]

27. It's the perfect war. Monkey and his pals knew that withdrawal would

be impossible, and hence the war would continue forever. Just like the war on terror. What was that quote from 1984 that Keith said? "Oceania has always been at war ..."

They knew going in that extracting ourselves or anyone else like a Democratic administration trying to do so would be met with a horrific aftermath. You think it's a nightmare now? Just wait till the official word gets out that we are leaving. Either it will be a mass bug-out like Vietnam with a desperate populace, or waves of withdrawals while being protected to the borders.

Then the blame will be spun that the Democrats lost the war. I know it's sick, but that's how it's going to be spun, and that's the way the Neocons want it. An exodus of our troops that will result in destruction to new levels we cannot even imagine, internal killings and horrible round-ups, and neighboring countries having their way.

Anyone who thinks a nice sit down wit the UN or anything else is delusional.

[rabies1]

28. Anything that happens can't be any worse than our presence there.

When we leave (and we will because I don't think the people will have it any other way), I wonder if it can be any worse than the 5 years of needless war we've already started. 2000 Iraqis are leaving every day (those who are still alive). I read the other day about a man who lost his 4yr old son, his wife, & his father (due to the recent suicide bomb attack). He's lost his whole family. I'm afraid he's typical. The longer we stay the worse it gets. And what about the land itself? Houses, businesses, utilities. I don't think it matters anymore we are doing nothing to help them or us.They hate our guts by barging into their homes, taking them, killing them, starting this whole bloody war with them, and staying there only to do more and more of the same.


Hey did you hear the other day that they used the embassy and wires melted, & things didn't work? I understand it was a real mess.
This comes as a shock to me as they were built by contractors. Heh Heh

[Neshanic]

29. No really, The levels of horror will stun everyone when we leave.

It's a horror house of nightmares now. It will get to the point where we will not be able to understand how brutal and how long(many years) it will take for the region to stabilize.

This war was meant to continue as white noise in the background in the American culture. Are there no Hiltons, no American Idol, no missing cute white blonds? With a compliant MSM, and no draft, this was planned to be going on for a long time. It's a win-win for the neocons. The ultimate "I told you so", and their revision of history that a Democratic congress forced us out. If a republican president is elected, which unlike blue-skyers here, I belive is a very real possiblity, the war will continue.

And that cues in the head in the sand no-impeach crowd here. Their crimes, and if they are impeached or not are irrelevant. The process of starting impeachemnt will shine a flashlight into the corners where these cockroaches live, and then the outcome of us leaving Iraq will be a much harder republican history revisionism exercise; the crimes and all the dirt being brought out, and people will at least be exposed to them. War lies, deception, the whole sordid affair.

Without the impeachment, it's their history to rewrite.

[rabies1]

32. Maybe I'm optimistic about our future.

It's taken the public so long to come around to the fact that impeachment must happen and the war must end. I agree that those in power now would like the war to go on forever _ there's big bucks to be had - at least until that oil sharing agreement is signed. By the way I heard the other day that Iraq is selling off parts of their land now. The bottom line is I don't think Americans will put up with this anymore. What are the approval ratings now? What percent of Americans want to end the war now? I do see a change coming.

I hope this isn't just wishful thinking.

[Toots]

33. What makes you such an expert? You give your opinion with such authority.

You are suggesting the oldest civilization on earth is far less capable of governing themselves than a foreign nation that is only two hubdred and thirty years old and doesn't even have a working knowledge of Iraq's customs or history...I say they will solve their problems that the US created in very short order. Their people will demand it as they always have done for over five thousand years. There is also something called Arab League and it will be quite involved. I think within a year Iraq would be much more peaceful than now and they would have in place a government that ruled Arab style.

[Neshanic]

37. It's not about capability. It's about a power/black hole that will

suck all reason out of the region. Oil + barely functioning central government = mess

[leftofthedial]

30. more of the same crap that's going on now

with one less side shooting

and less of our money being stolen every day

[JacquesMolay]

31. The same thing that will happen if we stay...

... only faster.

[OlderButWiser]

34. TO EVERYONE WHO POSTED THEIR THOUGHTS...

...thank you for sharing your opinions and giving me so much to think about.

[Sadie4629]

35. I remember the images from Vietnam

People clinging to the outsides of American helicopters as they took off. People desperate to leave, to avoid the bloodbath they knew was going to happen. I once heard a talk by someone who had been among the last to leave. He said he knew that his entire family would have been killed if they stayed because they had worked for the Americans.

It will be brutal.

[Hubert Flottz]

39. What does the UN really do?

What are they for?