I take the pessimistic view that nothing will change - in fact there was a terrorist bomb later in the same day that his death was announced. He was just one man - evil, yes; prominent, yes; a death organiser, yes; but the international terrorist organisations must certainly have others, perhaps worse. Remember what difference the imprisoning of Saddam Hussein made! Since his downfall there have been more intersectarian attacks and deaths than when he was in power. Think about, if Bush was assassinated, would the economy etc of the U.S. suddenly change - there would always be someone to step into his shoes, perhaps more ineffectively.
Leslie
I aggree with you Leslie!
See what Seymour Hersh, Rand Corp. and Stratford Org have to say - - -
How DEMOcracy in Iraq will DEMOlish the Middle East
• Elections are held in Iraq in December 2005
• Violence continues after election day in Terror attacks aimed at Shiites
• Wrangling of the Shiites with Sunnis and Kurds for the formation of an United Iraqi administration
• Terrorists blow off Shiites Mosques, explode car bombs in Shiite localities.
• Shiite-Sunni Civil War gradually begins in Iraq but is restrained by Shiite clerics.
• Shiite clerics want to rule the whole of Iraq and not the Southern Shiite rump and call for calm to keep Iraq united under their rule (we have reached this stage today)
• New Shiite dominated administration is formed and calls for phased pullout of US forces
• US forces begin a phased pullout
• They re-locate outside the cities in isolated fortified camps
• Sunni Terrorists blow off Iraqi parliament, Presidential palace, Prime Minister’s residence
• Terrorists assassinate Ministers, Parliamentarians
• Sunni Terrorists blow off Shiites Mosques at Najaf and Karbala, assassinate Al Hakim, and Moqtada Al Sadr who are important Shiites leaders and clerics.
• A full scale civil war starts between the Sunni dominated insurgents and the new Shiite led Iraqi military dominated by the late Al Hakim’s Badr Brigades and aided by the late Al Sadr’s Mahdi Militia
• Iran sends in insurgents to back Shiites
• Saudis, Syrians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Palestinians send in insurgents to back Sunnis
• Saudis and Kuwaitis call for US action to stop Iran from intensifying the Iraqi civil war
• Israel bombs Iranian nuke facilities to neutralize Iran.
• Iran tries to crash missiles into Israel and Europe
• Internal rebellion breaks out in Iran
• US special forces start operating inside Iran to topple Mullah regime
• Iranian/Hezbollah forces stage terrorist attacks in Israel and in the West
• US launches an air blitz of Iran followed by a land invasion and sets up a new regime
• The son of the late Shah of Iran returns to Iran as a private citizen
• Shiite -Hezbollah led terror attacks across the West and Israel intensify
• Israel invades Lebanon to wipe out the Hezbollah threat
• Egypt/Syria threaten Israel with serious consequences.
• Terrorist attacks originating from Gaza intensify in Israel
• Israel warns Syria with military action
• Mega terror attack inside Israel
• Israel declares Syria to be culpable and launches a swift land and air assault on Syria
• Syria appeals for Arab military action to save itself
• Egypt faces a civil war with sections of the Egyptian Military under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood launch a insurrection against the Mubarak administration.
• Pressurized by Syria and Egypt, Saudi Arabia starts feeble military action against Israel
• Israel overruns Northern Saudi Arabia and Syria in a pincer movement to join up with US forces stationed in Iraq and occupies Damascus.
• US forces enter Syria from Syrian-Iraqi border in the North, join up with Israeli military
• After the conquest of Syria, Israel turns on Egypt to help the pro Mubarak forces and annexes Sinai, crosses Suez Canal and threatens Cairo that is now in the hands of the Muslim brotherhood led Military junta.
• Another spectacular terror attack inside Israel with Dirty Bombs. Suspects traced to Saudi backed insurgents.
• Sustained IAF (Israel Air Force) nuke strike on Saudi cities, Mecca, Medina, Mena, Jiddah Riyadh, taken off the map.
• Upheaval in the entire Arab world
• Western diplomats and businessmen attacked, kidnapped, beheaded
• Anti-American riots in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia.
• Musharraf and Yudhyono regimes under tremendous pressure to give up pro-US stance
• Musharraf assassinated by pro-Jihadi elements in Army due to his association with the US. The Jihadis last straw being his helping the Americans in finding Iran's nuke sites as a trade off for letting AQ Khan off the hook. But Mushy's gamble does not pay off, as he loses his job and life.
• Jihadi regime in Pakistan ups hostility with India
• Jihadis succeed in smuggling nuclear devices in the US and exploding them simultaneously
• US army takes over US administration, suspends constitution
• US military regime blockades the UN and declares it persona non-grata
• US enters into emergency war council with Russia and Britain
• The triple alliance starts nuclear bombing military targets across the Islamic world
• Pakistani nukes taken out in first strike
• Pakistan explodes some nuke devices on India
• Indian retaliation wipes off Pakistan off the map – death toll in South Asia is over half a billion
• Widespread Hindu-Muslim riots in India on the lines of the Gujarat riots of 2002. Muslim population decimated, Hindus and Christians also suffer heavy death toll.
• Nuclear campaign launched by the triple alliance intensifies as many cities in the Islamic world are taken off the map to wipe off the air forces.
• Seaports in the Islamic world crippled to decapitate the navies
• Radiation causes second wave of deaths. The toll in secondary deaths more than three billion
• More than half of the fatalities are Muslims.
• Almost the entire population in the Muslim world is decimated.
• China joins war against Islam, wipes off Muslim (Ughir) population in Eastern Turkestan
• Muslims in Europe launch a wave of terror attacks in European capitals
• Conditions in Europe very disturbed in a civil war like situation
• Right wing coups in France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark. The new regimes join the triple alliance
• Widespread anti-Muslim riots in Europe aided by the militaries of those countries and NATO forces
• Domestic military action against Muslims in Europe intensifies as European militaries do combing operations to flush out Muslims
• The post-war Muslim population worldwide now accounts for only one percent of the global population concentrated mostly in Europe
• Military action ends, US, Britain and Russia announce reconstruction plan for the world
• Islam outlawed across the globe
• Residual Muslims worldwide embrace Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism. Judaism
• Humanity enters post-Islamic phase.
This write-up has been compiled based on analysis by Seymour Hersh and information at the following sites; Stratfor.org, Rand.org, Military.com
The Askariya Mosque attack and the ensuing Iraqi Civil War in Iraq will ominously take the entire Middle East into a vortex of self-destruction and apocalypse
The attack on the Al Askariya Mosque is not going to be the last one on the Iraqi Shiites from the Al Qaeda in Iraq. The attack on Karbala today and the attack on the Saudi Oil refinery near Dhahran yesterday are ominous indicators of the shape of things to come even if the radical Maverick cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, still manages to keep his flock of gunmen under control to ensure that Iraq does not fragment and the Shiites can rule the entire country, and not just the southern Shiite rump.
The reason why Iraq is going in slow motion towards a full-fledged civil war was revealed by the statement of a Sunni cleric yesterday. He said "Next time, we Sunnis will be prepared to meet the Shiite attack." Oh, you mean that this time you were not ready and from now on you will stockpile weapons coming from your co-Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan. Is that why Sunni clerics joined the Shiite clerics in appealing for calm? So that next time around the Shiite militias that storm the Sunni encalves will be mowed down by machine-gun fire and blown off by grenades and missiles? Just watch out, this will happen sometime soon, when Sadr or Sistani or Hakim or the Imam Ali Shrine are blown up sky high, by another Al Qaeda suicide bomber.
The blown up dome of the Al Askariya Mosque:
In Iraq, today there are three possibilities:
- an Iraq convulsed by violence for years to come;
- a Shiite-dominated Iraq; or
- an Iraq that fragments.
The first possibility could unleash Islamist forces in Saudi Arabia (and also in the Gulf countries, Yemen, Egypt, Libya), inviting greater American involvement for stabilizing the Saudi regime....
_____________________
The Shiites have everything to lose from a fragmented Iraq and so they in spite of the extreme provocation from the destruction of the Al Askariya, they are trying to keep Iraq away from a full-fledged civil war and a three way disintegration in to Shiite south that may eventually come under the sway of Iran and may finally merge in to Iran, a Sunni Central triangle, that may come under the influence of Baathist ruled Sunni dominated Syria, and a Kurdish north that will have to try hard to keep the prying eyes of Turkey off itself.
Turkey would make all out attempts to regain the Vilayet of Mosul which they lost out to the British Mandated and newly created country of Iraq after World War 1.
In response to the Askariya Mosque while Jalal Talebani, the Kurdish President of Iraq has also called for peace between the Shiites and Sunnis of Iraq, he would be keeping an eye on when he needs to retire to Mosul, the future capital of Kurdistan away from the mayhem in a country of which he ironically is the President of.
Iraq would soon see increasingly provocative attacks by the Al Qaeda in Iraq on Shiite sites. Al Qaeda may destroy the Shiite shrines at Karbala and Najaf, as the attack on Karbala has ominously indicated today just a couple of days after the Al Askariya attack. So even if the Shiites keep their cool in spite of the very provocative attack on the Al Askariya, the Al Qaeda will not let them rest till they take on the Sunnis, plunging Iraq in to a civil war.
The Al Qaeda has everything to gain with an Iraq convulsed in to a civil war, as that would prove the American liberation to have been a dismal failure. But more importantly, the Al Qaeda would keep getting recruits from the Sunnis across the Islamic crescent through Iraq being kept on the boil. That is why Al Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda thug in Iraq has pledged to wipe off all Shiites. It is going to be a difficult time for Shiites, as he would keep pinching the Shiite bottom, till they blow off their top – finally but reluctantly!
And so Iraq would eventually be divided between the rebellious Sunni triangle of Iraq, an area that will fall under the influence of the Syrians; and its increasingly turbulent Shiite south, an area that will be used by the Iranians to keep Iraq on the boil to stave off American action against Iran; and also the relatively stable Kurdish north, the area coveted by the Turks.
If you're a Kurdish leader in northern Iraq watching the mess unfolding in the rest of the country, the questions increasingly running through your mind would be: How long before we Kurds give up on a united Iraq and choose independence?
Why would the Kurds want to stay part of Iraq and risk being drawn into the out-of-control maelstrom overtaking the rest of the country?
And if Kurds break away from Iraq, that would enrage Turkey, which fears that an independent Iraqi Kurdish state would attract its own 12 million to 14 million Kurds. Iraq's fragmentation also would prove that Washington's vision of a united and democratic Iraq was a pipe dream. A restive Turkish Kurdistan, could strengthen Islamist forces in Turkey, destabilizing Turkish Democracy and weakening the secular traditions of Kemal Ataturk, pulling Turkey even further from the possibility of EU membership, giving rise to the demand for an Islamist Turkey, if not, hopefully, for a revival of the Khilafat (Caliphate) abolished by Kemal Ataturk in 1920. A Turkish civil war on the lines of what happened in Algeria cannot be ruled out entirely.
Coming back to Iraq, for the Kurds of Iraq, after decades of torture, mass executions, forced relocation and chemical attacks by Saddam Hussein's monstrous regime, the Kurds today have a chance to chart their destiny. So far, they have followed the American script. But today there are three possibilities:
- an Iraq convulsed by violence for years to come;
- a Shiite-dominated Iraq; or
- an Iraq that fragments.
The first possibility could unleash Islamist forces in Saudi Arabia (and also in the Gulf countries, Yemen, Egypt, Libya), inviting greater American involvement for stabilizing the Saudi regime with limited intervention in Egypt and elsewhere.
The second possibility of a Shiite-dominated Iraq, would strengthen Iran, inviting an American pre-emptive strike on Iran by the Fall of this year leading to further convulsions in the wider Islamic world, especially in Pakistan.
The third possibility of an Iraq that fragments, is equally perilous, since it would destabilize Turkey. The increasing upheaval we see today makes it increasingly necessary to contemplate all the three possibilities; all of which translate to one eventuality – a Middle East in ferment. And to be buried in this chaos will be the rubble of our blueprint for a democratic Iraq that was to transform the Middle East's landscape into a benign zone of Jeffersonian democracy.
What we see in Iraq today is:
Terrorists assassinating Ministers, Parliamentarians and the beginnings of a full scale civil war between the Sunni dominated insurgents and the new Shia and Kurd Iraqi military
What we may see tomorrow could involve"
• Iran sending in insurgents to back Shias
• Saudis, Syrians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Palestinians sending in insurgents to back Sunnis
• Saudis and Kuwaitis calling for US action to stop Iran from intensifying the Iraqi civil war
• US using the opportunity and bombs Iranian nuke facilities
• Iran trying to crash missiles into Israel and Europe
• Internal rebellion breaking out in Iran
• US special forces starting to operate inside Iran to topple Mullah regime
• Iranian/Hezbollah forces staging terrorist attacks in Israel and in the West
• US launching an air blitz of Iran followed by a land invasion and setting up a new regime
• Shia-Hezbollah led terror attacking across the West and Israel intensify
• Israel entering Lebanon to wipe out the Hezbollah threat
• Egypt/Syria threatening Israel with serious consequences.
• Terrorist attacks originating from Gaza intensifing in Israel
• Israel warning Syria with military action
• Spectacular mega terror attack in Israel
• Israel declaring Syria to be culpable and launching a swift land and air assault on Syria
• Syria appealing for Arab military action to save itself
• Israel occupying Damascus
• US forces entering Syria from Syrian-Iraqi border in the North, join up with Israeli military
• Mecca, Medina, Mena, Jiddah taken off the map thru IAF (Israel Air Force) nuke strikes
• Upheaval in the entire Arab world
• Jihadis succeed in smuggling nuclear devices in the US and exploding them simultaneously
In this scenario, what may work is far too ruthless to contemplate. This involves that we re-enact what the allies did in Dresden in the closing years of the World War II; but would the Bush administration be ready to go this far? Unless, of course, by then the Jihadis succeed in launching their much vaunted nuclear strike against the West, that they boast will upset the balance of power and re-define the parameters of victory and defeat for them and for the West. A boast yes, but not empty enough to prevent millions of civilian deaths in the West, and devastating enough to enrage the democratic world to carry the war on terror to a successful finish at a cost in terms of human lives that has become unimaginable since the days of Hiroshima.
