Heh! The flaw in the premise; we do not have to be physically there to have all of those things occur. As they have been occuring since the early 70s. Exactly as you proscribe. Do you honestly sit there and tell me that Iran is only anti-US because we are in Iraq Skippy? Our relationship with the Turks is strained because we are in Iraq and we were all hugging and singing Kumbaya before we entered Iraq? Well damn, time for a group hug!

Hell Skippy, the Straits of Hormuz have always been a very, very dangerous place because of Iran. I’d have to say they are safer now because of our presence. That place will make your butt cheeks pucker at any time. Before our involvement in Iraq or no. To think that our involvement in Iraq is the big bad cause of all that is happening today is to ignore history and the true cause and effect. Regardless as to you how you feel about the ME, Asia, et al our presence IS a stablizing effect. It would be more so if we could keep seditious loud-mouthed politicians off the TV!

The strain on our force structure is of our own doing. Political “experts” stripping the military (i.e. Clinton, Rumsfled et al) and politicians jumping on the bandwagon to free those funds for their proverbial bridges to nowhere. You can’t have the pork money to buy more votes from a general population that is too stupid to take responsibility for themselves while placing financial security “given” them by government over freedom and the consequences of having it. If you build the military to where she needs to be, the vaunted Halls of Congress would have a collective meltdown. Add to that the improper direction money has been flowing into techies instead of boots by the military leadership and I doubt seriously if you can blame our “strain” on anything but ourselves.

Aw hell, what do I know, right? I’m just a dumbass BushRiecher that is too stupid to understand that we should just cut and run while pulling back to make the continental US an armed camp where we allow our enemies to dictate to us how we live our lives. Leave ‘em alone and they’ll just feed on themselves and give us a pass.

Your truck armor plated? Got kevlar? You’re gonna’ need ‘em!

The only hope we have is the same hope they had in the 20s and 30s fighting anarchists. It’ll take a world effort to eradicate the Islamofascists and we have to lead the way. As usual and not because we like it. 9-11 led us kicking and screaming into the reality that is our fight with Islamofascism. Oh well, some of us anyhoo.

The more likely scenario? Iraq uses its oil wealth to make its Shiite majority richer at the expense of its Sunni minority-it employs TCN’s do all the hard work and like their Arab brethern elsewhere they wallow in an oil rich, very dysfunctional economy. The Kurds continue to create trouble and incur the wrath of Turkey. At which point the Kurds either withdraw entirely or Iraq uses its American trained army to overthrow its currently useless government and put a strongman in place-who hopefully will be a pro US strongman. Or not.

I’ve never accepted the “Iraq will light a democratic fire across the Middle East” hypothesis. These are Arabs-not Westerners.

Surely, Skippy-san, you can acknowledge the game-changing potential of such a success, even if you disagree on its likelihood.