Quote:
Originally posted by Henry L.:
I seem to remember exactly 3 years ago on this VERY day when we began bombing Afghanistan. We need to think of Iraq as a second front from which we can put pressure on the real powerhouse in terms of terrorism: Iran. A 2 front war on Iran could cut our casualties by as much as 50%, should we ever need to wage war with them. This is the country you liberals are most worried about (as am I) so you'll support a 2-front war with them I am sure :rolleyes: .

This is similar to somthing I read about a month ago. It is an interesting read and concept although I don't know how credible it is.
I believe it is an individual soldiers assesment or speculation on possible additional motives of the war.

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The true impact of Iraq appears in this assessment by an air commando vet:

It reflects what many of my colleagues are saying...the job is not finished, but we are winning at every encounter with the bad guys...however, casualties can’t be the measure of our success...after all, one of my planning buddies pointed out, the UN said there would be 500,000 casualties in the first three days of fighting...we aren’t even close to that on either side...from the US planning perspective, 14,000 was the estimated number of casualties...if Bush thought that was an acceptable trade to take down the threat of Saddam, then he certainly isn’t going to flinch at the daily deaths reported so widely by the national news sources, especially when he is getting objective reports that detail how well things are really going on the ground.

I still haven’t seen anyone connect the dots yet about isolating Iran using Iraq and Afghanistan as a US controlled buffers that restrict overland traveling and out of Iran. The Iranian trained terrorists now find it much more difficult to travel to the Syrian/Lebanon staging ground for Hamas and the rest of the Muslim murderers who plot the destruction of Israel from that safe haven. The strategy from day one after September 11 was to isolate Iran and its hate-mongering Mullahs despite the suspicion of the Saudi’s and their complicit funding of terrorism through Islamic charities. On the East, Afghanistan and Pakistan form a boundary that requires deception, planning, and more difficult travel routes in order to infiltrate those countries. The presence of US technology overhead is a constant threat to the terrorists and their safe passage into target populations of their destination. The same is true on the West...Iraq is now dominated by a US presence that make a traverse of the northern route to Syria impossible without deception and better planning on the part of the Iranian terrorist groups. This strategy is showing some results in the Syrian-Jordan area as intercepts of terrorist convoys disguised as regular commercial truck traffic has been greatly increased. The best example of that is the Syrian border conflict a few weeks back where the Syrian border guards tried to assist the smugglers in running the border and paid the price for their belief that we would let these guys roll into safe haven without a fight.

Our strategy of isolating Iran will never be acknowledged by DoD, but I’m sure you recognize your favorite SECDEF, our man Rummy, as a critical thinker in the evolution of this policy of isolating our enemies...can you spell containment?...same strategy, just a different application for a different enemy.

Another reason for the removal of Saddam was the need for a staging ground for US forces outside of Saudi Arabia. PSAB (Prince Sultan Air Base) is now a ghost town compared to what it was five months ago. The US presence in Saudi has been reduced considerably because our forces are now using airfields in the western deserts of Iraq. This has not been lost on Syria or Iran. We can strike Syria with enough airpower to render their entire military capability useless in less than 15 minutes. In the case of Iran, we have three directions from which we can assault their airspace. They only have enough airpower to oppose one assault corridor...and most of that is focused on the southern route since that has been the traditional assumption of entry from Qatar and Bahrain. The east and west routes are lightly defended relative to the south...and from the north, it is an open door to Tehran if we chose to stage out of one of the ‘Stans where we now have a formidable logistics presence.

In any analysis of this strategic plan of isolating Iran, one must conclude that it is remarkable in its flexibility and brilliant in its simplicity. Best of all, it is based on solid military science and tactical considerations that require political patience, military discipline, and the determined focus of strong leadership on winning the war by eliminating the bad guys and governments that support them.

Slam it home and cross their eyes