Originally posted by Excel1
Iraq + Iran = Irate
I think the dislike they have for the West will subdue the dislike they have for each other. And even if it didn't the shia would probably win a civil war anyway, through superior numbers,which probably would not be an unwelcome result in shia Iran.
Don't kid yourself, I've been there and they have plenty of hate to go around. And it's not just Shia and Sunni, though they be the major players, you've also got the wildcard of the Kurds, which noone else in the region likes or trusts, and Turkomen, and a few Christians, and some other small groups in Iraq. Then there are tribal and clan disputes on top of that, some of which go back many generations. Some of these disputes often result in small wars themselves.
A major Shia uprising against the Sunni may set off all their neighbors to the south and west who are mostly Sunni. They may find an ally in the Iranian Shia, but they are Persian, not Arab, so that throws a wrench in the works.
Then there's the economic equation: a Civil War, or multi-faceted war in the Persian Gulf will tank the U.S. economy, and the economies of several other countries such as Japan, and a few in Europe.
Iraq may have been under dictatoral rule, but it was at least stable and contained at the time, as well as being the most secular arab nation...then....now it's well on its way to being a nation under strict Islamic law and very likely Civil War.
Trying to invoke democratic rule in that secularly and triabally divided nation was a huge mistake. Firing 400,000 Iraqi military personnel after the Invasion was a second huge mistake. Those that did not become the core of the insurgency have turned to organized crime, kidnapping for ransom, extortion, and black market operations. U.S. State Department has been screwing up by the numbers pretty regularly for a while now.