War on Terrorism (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

The talking heads are unanimous that Trump's new and sweeping economic sanctions won't make Iran budge and that therefore the war will go on. This is perfectly true but what the experts are ignoring is that sanctions are not the issue. Iran can always ride them out, they've been demonstrating it for fifty years.

What the Iranians haven't been tested on is not having any seaborne trade. The effect of this makes sanctions of any sort extremely small beer.

[Wile E. Coyote]

One just have to look at the impact that the sanctions had on Iraq, after Saddam invaded and was then defeated by the U.S. and allies' in the 1991 Gulf War.

Operation Desert Storm, drove Saddam out of Kuwaiit, but it included an intense 42-day air campaign on Iraq. Civilian facilities such as highways, power plants, and water purification plants, were hit to encourage Iraqi discontent, but still, the war ended and Saddam survived both this and the subsequent local uprisings.

So now Western UN sanctions were stregthened, in order to pressure Saddam to abandon his weapons of mass destruction programs, and pay Kuwaiti war reparations.

Thse sanctions stopped all outside trade with Iraq, there were no fly zones across Iraq. A total embargo prohibited the Saddam government from selling its oil on the global market, which generated most of its revenue. Iraq’s GDP plummeted, and there was then a period of hyperinflation and mass poverty/hunger.

Did this force regime change. No.

The devastation was such that by 1995 the UN had to allow Iraq to sell some of its oil to the UN in exchange for humanitarian food. This still did produce Iraq regime change.

What did for Saddam finally, was actually 13 years of sanctions...... followed by a well organised invasion.

Realistically. If you are after regime change in Iran you are looking at years of sanctions, followed then by invasion.

[Mick Harper]

One difference between Mullahite Iran and Saddam's Iraq is that the former is a genuine democracy, if only at the street level. Another difference is that Iranians are full of bourgeois pretensions. If only at the urban level.

Iraq did not require a burning sense of injustice to keep it altogether. Saddam's internal security organs did that. Iranians, sans the creature comforts, will be too much for street-patrolling Decency Police. You must have noticed that Iranian women are no longer bound to the chador. Once fundamentalism is gone, the fundamentalists won't be far behind.

In short, in my opinion, the IRGC are aware of the need to get the ships rolling, whatever the cost. If only Trump will allow them to do it. But he's become a bit of a fundamentalist himself, drunk on his own rhetoric.

[Wile E. Coyote]

9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three co-conspirators will now stand trial. A U.S. Air Force judge has ordered their military tribunal to begin on June 5, 2028.

This is far from ideal, but looking at the positive side for the defence, their client has now ammassed a lot of time served, to subtract from any future sentence.