[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Unknown_Enemy:
Revisited opinion.

I stumbled into this passage

quote:

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5- Civil war breaks out in Iraq between die hard Sunnis (Saddam's power base), Shia militias (that have been maintaining training camps in Iran) and Kurds. None of this would Last long. The invasion is largely to stomp on Saddam's Sunni backers and that will happen no matter what. The Turks will take care of any violent Kurds, something the Turks have been doing quite handily for over a thousand years. The Shia militias couldn't defeat the Republican Guard, and they certainly can't defeat the U.S. Army. Iraq still loses the war.

As if the invasion was versus an ethnical group (the Sunni), while the Kurds were just cannon fooder for the Turc. This part is especially avoiding the difficult part of US policie between their need of Kurds and their need of Turkey to access the Balkans.

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In a sense, it was, since most of the Saddam regime's supporters were from the Sunnis (minorities in a Shiite/Kurdish nation), and most of Saddam's inner core came from one town, Tikrit. The whole Kurdish-Turkish question is probably one of the real sticky points for future resolution in this region - and you can bet Iran (who has its own minority problems) is watching how things unfold very closely.

As a whole, I was not impressed by that website, so I'll keep on with stratfor which seems much more serious in its work.

I assume you are still referring to StrategyPage.com. Two points - first, just because StrategyPage is free does not mean it's not serious. (I'm not unaware of Stratfor - I get their free e-newsletter). Second, StrategyPage (and its hardcopy predecessor works by James Dunnigan and Austin Bay, How to Make War and A Quick and Dirty Guide to War) have an impressive track record. Case in point - Baghdad. Stratfor envisioned three models of that battle, all three from WWII paradigms. StrategyPage pointed out that the US had learned a lot from Israeli experience in digging out militants from urban areas, and would likely try some new tricks. Lo and behold, Dunningan and Bay got it right - again.

You can keep StratFor - I'll stick with a proven winner.

[ April 10, 2003, 21:41: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]