Ouch My Head Hurts!

Iran:
Afghanistan was a necessary thing, Iraq was a bad idea and Iran will be the American waterloo.

Indications are that we have been violating Iranian sovereign territory for some time. On the other hand, it looks like they have been meddling in Afghanistan and Iraq. So its tit for tat. The real question is can we take them. In my opinion the answer is no.

Unlike Iraq, Iran has not been weakened by decades of sanction. They are not divided by ethnic struggles. The democracy movement has been driven underground and the religious conservative are firmly in control. Iraq, even when aided by the USA, could not take the country. The air war will go as usual. Air superiority will be quickly established and shock and awe will begin. That is when things will go wrong. China did not allow us to take North Korea, and it will no allow us to take Iran. Their assistance may not be committing their armed forces, but assistance will arrive. Most likely in the form of air to ground missiles. Expect much higher losses of aircraft in this campaign. Also expect a much nastier ground campaign. The Iranians are not fools. They have watched the Afghan and Iraq campaigns and know exactly what we plan on doing. They will have dispersed their troops and devised a strategy's to counter us. Meanwhile, we will not have enough troops to hold Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran at the same time. Expect uprising in both of the previous conquests. We could take any one of the three countries in question, if we did it one at a time, but not all three. Iraq is obviously not pacified, but what you don't hear about is that neither is Afghanistan. Much like the previous Russian invasion we know control the Afghan cities and little else. Warlords and drug traffickers control the rest. The Taliban are waiting for their chance to return and invading Iran will provide the opportunity. An of course the Sunni's will take this as an opportunity to retake control of Iraq. China may even take this moment to reclaim Taiwan. Everybody on the planet knows we are stretched to thin, except for Mr Bush.

And of course there is the big question does Iran have any nukes?

Iran almost certainly has all the components for a nuclear weapon, excluding the fissile material. They were part of the nuclear black market that supplied Libya with its nuclear weapon plans. If you have the plans then the smartest thing to do is fabricate the devices components on a parallel schedule with your enrichment program. In fact its not that hard to assemble bomb. After all we are talking about 1940's technology. If they are smart they probably assembled several devices and tested their effectiveness with dummy loads of uranium. The bombs (and or their components) have probably been scattered over the country waiting for the necessary radioactive material to be come available.

Iran has several advantages over Iraq when it comes to launching a nuclear attack.

1)They already have heavy lift capability missiles
2)They are a bigger country.(more places to hide stuff)
3)Unlike Iraq they were never interrupted by the gulf war.
4)They are on reasonably good terms with the other Arab countries.(compared to Iraq)
5)They have an established trading relationship with North Korea, China and Russia.

Its quite possible that they have purchased a completed bomb or the necessary fissile material. After all china already sold bomb technology to Pakistan and North Korea is already cash strapped and ostracized by the world community. While Russia is so corrupt that they could sell a warhead and not know it.

This next war should be a real blast!

I was mulling over the whole Iraq thing the other day and a though bubbled up to the surface.

Isn't the real test of a democracy when your side looses?

With the Shia being about 60% of the population, maybe the really question for Iraq is: Are the Kurds and Sunnis good losers? It takes a lot of restrain and faith in the system to be a good loser. It takes a willingness to accept policies and laws passed by people you dislike (despise?).

Look what happened with the last election in the U.S. As emotionally crushed as the democrats were, Kerry didn't call for an Intifada. No bombing campaign has started. No targeted assassinations have occurred. No "Orange" revolution refusing to accept the results. Democratic angst seems to be confined to using "due process" and threats to move to Canada (something the Canadians don't seem to be encouraging).

And how would we feel if we lived in a democracy where we were in the permanent oppressed minority (like the Kurds in Turkey). If I remember my high school civics class democracy is "Majority rule with respect for the rights of the minor." If you are a Sunni or Kurd in Iraq what do you really have to look forward in the new democracy? If the Shia achieves a stable 60% hold on parliament, what incentive do you have for not picking up an AK47?

Of course in a Civil war you would also be out numbered. But the Sunni have been running the country for decade so a certain amount of arrogance and distain may exist in the Sunni population. It may be that the only think that could save democracy in Iraq will be the fracturing of the Shia vote into secular and religious factions. Such a split would force part of the Shia elected officials to form a coalition with the minority population. On the other hand, an even smaller group, who decides to perform selective assassinations, could easily disrupt this very delicate scenario. Killing Sunni, Kurdish and Shia politicians would be a great way to set three very distrustful populations at each other's throats.

In the end democracy may come down to a shot in the dark.