Bloody Iraq Campaign Comes to an End

A tragic and ultimately unproductive nine years of war in Iraq comes to a close. Originally the justification for the war was to stop the development and use of WMDs and for purported links of Iraq to Al Qaeda.

It turned out there were no WMDs and no links to Al Qaeda. Then the justification was shifted to regime change and rebuilding a new Iraq after years of oppression from Saddam Hussein. 

But contrary to the hopes many Iraqis had for the US invasion -- that a new, prosperous country could be built -- Iraq is worse off now in prosperity and in stability.

It has been suggested in the media, such as here and here, that there will be a bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities in January or February next year. I find that likely and the current military moves are in good time for such.

If so, the Straits of Hormuz will close and oil prices will skyrocket. The fragile economic position of many countries such as those in Europe could be pushed over the edge. There could be a global depression.

From there who knows? You could get another attempt by the UN, such as the recent attempts at the climate conferences, to form a global government. And then the implementation of human population reduction schemes prized by so many in the global elite.

I doubt it will lead to a military World War 3 as some commentators have speculated. Israel will bomb a few military and a few nuclear facilities in Iran and in return Iran will lob a few missile's Israel's way, much like the Iraqis did during Gulf War 1, and possibly up to Turkey as well. The only real way for it to escalate is with increased interest from Russia and China.

It could be that Israel will take all the military duties on themselves. Therefore the US could claim that it's not them doing this. It would make it difficult for Russia or China to justify an intervention that involved attacking the US, when the US is just an "innocent bystander". (Of course the US will be in fully in the know if Israel's attack does go ahead.)

Fox analyst Ralph Peters was interviewed on US Fox news and said that the US withdrawal was "Iran winning". I view it differently. I think the US pullout from Iraq is a master stroke if a bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities goes ahead.  If the US troops were still in Iraq it would provide the perfect excuse to engage them overland in Iraq and possibly even make an overland push to Israel.

As it is relations are warming between the newly sovereign Iraq, and Iran. For an example see Christopher Booker's article on the sinister collaboration between Baghdad and Tehran to liquidate 3,400 Iranian rebels in Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

It is unlikely that Iran would mount any sort of campaign against Israel, the US and its allies by going overland through Iraq now that Iraq is sovereign and on its own. There would, however, be the excuse to make advances overland in the other, westward direction toward Afghanistan where the US is still active.

How convenient then that some of the US forces leaving Iraq are not going home but are actually being redeployed (according to this dude) to bolster forces in Afghanistan, perhaps in preparation for possible retaliation from Iran for the planned bombings or even a land incursion into Iran.

Although the military objectives were largely achieved well by the US-led coalition, with notable exceptions like failing to quell the insurgency and a learning curve for dealing with IEDs that eventually resulted in the use of MRAPs, the stated political ambitions before the war to rebuild Iraq were not achieved.

 MRAPs coming over the border from Iraq into Kuwait. I just learned about these as I viewed the final withdrawal from Iraq on CNN.  The two metal rails fixed over the vehicles are power line diverters.  The vehicles were taking down power lines everywhere so they put these rails on them to divert the lines over the top.

George Bush, Dick Cheney and other neo-cons have a lot of pain, blood and misery on their hands to answer for. Bush didn't even get an authorisation from Congress for the war.

About 4,500 US soldiers were killed, mostly through the use of the infamous Improvised Explosive Devices. The mainstream media says that about 100,000 Iraqis died during the war. Other estimates have it at 1,000,000 Iraqis dead. Millions more were displaced or otherwise deeply affected.

Iraq is littered with depleted uranium from US munitions that are causing cancers and birth defects.

All a needless waste including 1 trillion US dollars wasted.  What a bill!

War should only be waged if you absolutely have to and there are genuine defensive needs. Iraq is too distant from the US to ever be a threat that warrants an invasion.

If America had a president like Ron Paul this wouldn't have happened.  Let's hope he becomes president and the US can start to heal its relationship with the rest of the world.