Iraq and the other Arab countries would've fallen in line, and probably given the U.S. free oil for the next 25 years in gratitude.
What should we have done? Well, a coherent national energy policy not beholden to special interests (including the Arabs) would have been a good start. It would certainly have given us a free hand in our policy there.
After 9/11 we had to “do something.” Going into Afghanistan was a good idea, so long as it was to depose the Taliban, and kill as many terrorists based there as possible. The mistake was in staying. We should have just left them to their own devices after doling out some punishment. Oh sure, some day we would have to do it again. But staying permanently was a really bad idea.
We should have left Iraq alone.
I believe that once you decide to fight a hot war, you do it WWII style. Take no prisoners.
But in the middle east I would add a twist:
First, you wipe out all powerful physical forces.
Then you write off all adult muslims and male children over the age of ten. They all go to a separate walled off state in which they would spend their entire life. The camp would ahve no mosques but would have Christian churches.
The rest of the country would see all of its mosques ether destroyed or used for something else, maybe churches.
But everything I just posted is ridiculous, for it violates the very core principles I hold as a Christian. There is no human solution to Islam other than somehow preventing them from killing and maiming those that disagree with them. How do you do that without simply wiping out their entire culture and colonizing the area?
God will take care of it, eventually.
And the funny thing about Iran is that racially they are Arian.
I nominate you for Sec of State!
There is a reason why historians refer to the Middle East as “the graveyard of empires”.
There are no real nations there. The governments are run like ‘Mafia-style’ family cliques; a head guy and his family dominates everyone else in the local area. Sometimes a “king” evolves and can convince enough of the local ‘Mafia-style’ families to join up and form a federation of sorts. But it is a very unstable way to govern and everyone is suspicious of everyone else. These relationships shift around like wind-blown sand. Double crosses are common; so are asassinations.
The worst thing Westerners can do is try to be someone’s ally. In the Middle East that is tantamount to seeking to overthrow one of the ‘Mafia-families’, and so they always deal “dishonestly” with Westerners. Trust is definitely missing in foreign relations when dealing with Arabs.
The people there are going to have to change from the inside. They are going to have to want to change, and the primary obstruction is Islam.
I have been thinking about this problem since 9/11/01.
We may have to resort to either a blockade and immigration prohibition or colonizing territory.
How about the next time we are attacked, we ID the offending country and take some of their territory? Perhaps a port or resource-rich area? If they keep attacking us, we take more territory.
We make it clear that they are never getting the land back and they will lose more and more until they make permanent peace with the rest of the world.
We need to make war more expensive for them than it is for us.
Its either that or nuke the site from orbit.
Like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s1MspmfEwg