Quote: (12-02-2014 05:37 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:
Dumb question?
What happens if the US and the West pull out of this entire fracas (except for Israel, I guess)
WIA
No, it's a perfectly reasonable question.
Here is a map of the region as it currently stands, for orientation purposes.
![[Image: 800px-Syria_and_Iraq_2014-onward_War_map.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Syria_and_Iraq_2014-onward_War_map.png/800px-Syria_and_Iraq_2014-onward_War_map.png)
The first effect would be the final and irreversible breakup of what's left of Iraq. With Western support gone, the Shia government in Baghdad will fold completely into the Iranian orbit - there's no one else left to support them. Certainly the Sunni Arab states aren't going to. Iranian advisors, weaponry, and troops will flood into Iraq, much like Syria, in order to protect Iran's allied government against the Sunni-backed IS. The Islamic State won't be able to take Baghdad, but the Iranian/Iraqi alliance won't be able to defeat the Islamic State. Look to see a stalemate in Iraq much like what we're seeing in Syria now.
The Kurds will likely make the final moves to declare full independence from Iraq - it's American pressure that has stopped them from doing so as of yet. American/Western withdrawal from the region would convince them that they can only rely on themselves - this could lead them to "pull an Israel" and set up their own nascent state unilaterally. This will likely push Turkey into threatening military action to prevent the possibility of Kurdish independence - already peace talks between the Turkish government and the militant PKK group are coming close to failing.
In Syria, what you would likely see would be the complete collapse of the comparatively moderate, non-jihadist fighters within the Syrian opposition (the ones they keep talking about that want a peaceful liberal democratic government in Syria, but that seem to be ever-vanishingly few in number.) The Assad regime will be in a comparatively great position, considering most political analysts were predicting its swift demise not two or three years ago. It has consolidated itself into complete control over the "heartland" of what remains Syria, so to speak, in a strip stretching from Damascus in the south, to the key cities of Homs and Hama in the centre of the strip, to the coast and the Alawite heartland in the north. With the final destruction of the pro-Western opposition forces in Syria, the battle will devolve into a static three-way between Assad (backed by Iran), the Islamist resistence (backed by the Sunni states.) and the Islamic State.
Indeed, there's another divide even within that. Qatar and Turkey both are backers of the Muslim Brotherhood (who are Islamist revolutionaries) and are enemies of the other Gulf monarchies (who are reactionary conservatives.) Lebanon will likely devolve into another battlefield, as the Sunni powers seek a new playground from which to bleed the Shia side.
So, to sum it all up, you have:
Team Shia: Iran, Iraq, the Assad regime, Hezbollah.
Team Sunni Conservatives: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Egypt, the Saudi-supported faction of the Syrian opposition.
Team Sunni Revolutionaries: Qatar, Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar-supported faction of the Syrian opposition.
Team Kurds.
Team Islamic State.
Each jockeying for position, each set on achieving either regional supremacy or mere survival, each not hesitating in the slightest to sacrifice as many human bodies as necessary to make it happen.
Put simply, this is a recipe for warfare on a near-biblical scale. The entire Greater Levantine region, stretching across the territories of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, will be gripped by ethno-religious sectarian warfare that won't have been seen in world history since the end of the Thirty Year's War in 1648 - the last and deadliest of the Wars of Religion that convulsed across Europe in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. It will be the shattering of the artificial borders that were created by the Sykes-Picot Agreement - indeed, with the creation of the Islamic State we are well past that point already.
This coming war will define the Middle East for decades to come - as much so as we can speak of the United States pre- and post-9/11.
HSLD
![[Image: tard.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/new/tard.gif)
...) and displace them. Hence the recent beheading.
![[Image: blink.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/new/blink.gif)
