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Originally Posted by Catfish
While the rest of your post makes sense, i still wonder why the US attacked Iraq instead of Iran if the latter was the real threat?
Following this logic the US could have attacked Andorra or San Marino as well.  |
Good question. To be honest I really dont know why, its been one big mess over there for the last several centuries. Maybe because Iran is a much larger country and the terrain more varied. Could have made logistics and decisive operations like 73 Easting kind of difficult. There would have also been sympathetic shiite populations in Iraq to our rear. Getting stuck in the middle could have turned out to be a major charlie foxtrot.
On the other hand Iraq has always been deeply divided and after Kuwait invasion was ripe for regime change. Now was invasion to free Kuwait or part of some long term plan to confront Iran and its nuclear ambitions. Maybe China's creeping influence butting heads with our Carter doctrine which dictates we protect the oil resources in the middle east I dont really know. Could have been all three and more reasons together. Whatever the case we are knocking on Iran's front door now from Iraq and Afghanistan. Couple that with sanctions, internal anti-government protests, and resistance groups killing off government officials and scientists inside Iran seems to be chipping away at things. No rush though we got all day.
As for Israel, yes they may have contributed something, intel maybe? But I dont think its enough for me to hop on the same bandwagon as the Iranian Red Guard and blame Israel for the attack.