quote:

ORIGINAL: Real0ne

yep just like america, once you take a country by conquest you can sell it all off to the highest bidder.

kool the way nation building works aint it.
~East India Company

quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Except when the oil stops flowing the US and the West will be fucked.

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

Steven, where's the downside?
They'll go to war and kill each other off, we won't have to do anymore "rebuilding or give them anymore "foreign aid" because Iran will be doing that right?
And who cares about "losing" Iraq? Do you plan on vacationing there?
I don't,... not ever!
Let the sunni's and shites slaughter each other and that's one less problem for Israel.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

The Middle East region spends c$98.6 billion on arms purchases annually.* Most of this is spent in the West (we have to pay for all that oil somehow).

We arm the rulers of the region to the teeth. We demand the oil they possess. We do the invading. (Iran, since the Islamic Revolution, has invaded precisely zero (0) countries.) The peoples of the region do virtually all the dying.

If Iraq goes pear shaped, Iran won't invade. It will arm and/or finance the Iraqi Govt to fight Sunni and/or Kurdish rebels. Saudi Arabia and the tinpot potentates of the Gulf will arm and/or finance the rebels. The West will prefer a rebel victory (preferably a slow victory in order to maximise arms sales). Historically and strategically, Iraq's Sunnis will be seen as better partners for the West, while the Shia will have shown themselves 'untrustworthy' for daring to ally themselves with their co-religionists in Iran (the West's version of a "Great Satan")

As Iraq falls apart, we, in the West, will still buy oil and sell arms to the region while simultaneously mouthing sanctimonious platitudes and shaking our heads sadly at those 'primitive Muslims' who slaughter each other in Allah's name.

In short, business as usual.

* http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

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ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

Steven, where's the downside?
They'll go to war and kill each other off, we won't have to do anymore "rebuilding or give them anymore "foreign aid" because Iran will be doing that right?
And who cares about "losing" Iraq? Do you plan on vacationing there?
I don't,... not ever!
Let the sunni's and shites slaughter each other and that's one less problem for Israel.

1. An unstable Middle East is bad news. Period. 
2. I don't like innocents getting slaughtered.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Moonhead

quote:

ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

Steven, where's the downside?
They'll go to war and kill each other off, we won't have to do anymore "rebuilding or give them anymore "foreign aid" because Iran will be doing that right?
And who cares about "losing" Iraq? Do you plan on vacationing there?
I don't,... not ever!
Let the sunni's and shites slaughter each other and that's one less problem for Israel.

1. An unstable Middle East is bad news. Period. 
2. I don't like innocents getting slaughtered.

You'd think that as somebody with a bee in his bonnet about money leaving the country, he'd find the fact that the billions your last two governments have pissed away on the "reconstruction" of Iraq will be wasted as soon as the Ayatollah takes over. as well...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Moonhead
You'd think that as somebody with a bee in his bonnet about money leaving the country, he'd find the fact that the billions your last two governments have pissed away on the "reconstruction" of Iraq will be wasted as soon as the Ayatollah takes over. as well...