Campquake Senate

Just wanted to see what you all thought about Iraq's future.
Posting opinions is welcome, but no trolling please.

Interesting that the Iraqi Government today executed 13 insurgent terrorists by hanging. This was I believe a first for the self-elected government of Iraq...

It's a start.

Honestly, whoever said WW3 better be joking.....

If you were to look at WW3 from a probability outlook, it's most likely WW3 would start in the Middle East, as opposed to anywhere else in the world today.

IMNSHO anywho...

Middle East is fubar. Too many religions claim they are the "right" ones and then you have extremists killing over their religion. Certainly this is unstable land, but World class Wars ensue when territories are threatened. These religious problems, beheadings, and other acts of wrong doing are not sufficient enough to start a massive global war. Especially when countries like the US are supposed to have a seperation of Church and State. So islamic jihad will continue until someone else slaps them down quietly, secretly perhaps.

World War I was sparked by one assassination, Archduke Ferdinand's, so I wouldn't be too sure... =T

Things are different now, I suppose, but I certainly wouldn't put it beyond imagination for a world war to be sparked from something small. <shrugs>

I included the WW3 option as a worst case scenario, and did not
expect it to get any votes. But it actually makes more
sense to me now. What makes Iraq and many of the countries
in the Middle East important is oil. I think oil will eventually
reach USD 150 per barrel. Before that happens, I expect
the US to maintain a permanent military presence in the area to
ensure the smooth flow of oil. Other countries may not want the
US to get the lion's share of the remaining oil. Two that come to
mind are Russia and China. Eventually another world war is possible,
but hopefully not likely. I think it is inevitable that some power,
either internal or external (Iran or US) will prevent a failed state in
the short term simply because of the oil reserves.
Thanks to all who voted, the results were not what I expected!

Canada has over 300 years of oil supply sitting underneath our dirt. We're already your major source of it, just tell your government to stop exaggurating the need for middle-east oil

Oh, and be nice to us -- we have lots.

<L> we have some too....just not allowed to drill for it. It's like a batch of nice gooey chocolate chip cookies...And mom says No, those arn't for you! =D

Well theres no point in turning all your land into a waste and killing all the pwetty aminals just so you can drive your SUV some more.

All the oil in Canada is in Alberta, its already a wasteland -- and theres no aminals... at least not pwetty ones. Heck I wouldnt even mind killing off the people in Alberta to get the oil

Scion wrote:<L> we have some too....just not allowed to drill for it. It's like a batch of nice gooey chocolate chip cookies...And mom says No, those arn't for you! =D

So that's where they went!

I'd have to say I'd postulate that events may go far more negative and severe than anyone would expect.

In the IOPG, Indian Ocean Persian Gulf, we have all the right players for a huge World War, the likes never before seen.

Concentrated there is at least every factor needed to set off everyone. Imagine an unchecked Iran with a bomb. Now imagine Israel standing silent for that, never happen. If Israel were to attack Iran, like they did with Iraq, it will set off the whole Middle East. The U.S. would honor it's treaty committments to Israel and Russia would honor its committments to Iran.

Throw into this Al Queda in Iraq, who have been after oil enrichment plants in Saudi. Anyone with logistical smarts will nuke, destroy, liquidate, or otherwise torch these reserves or attempt to. This will have the net effect of poor world oil markets and drive the prices up yes. The U.S. would turn to it's own internal resources and placed like Canada and South America, but we've not built enrichment plants in decades, so we'd have oil, but not fuel. That's bad.

Emerging markets like China, who are driving the price up already, we'll they don't have the plants either, and more importantly for this argument is that they are closer, much closer to say Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq.

So in the end its not who has the oil, its who can get the fuel to me and to my population...take that out and you've got a real reason to fight. And we've not even calculated the European Interests in keeping the dollar down and the Euro up, which means anyone messing with oil reserves and fuel processing is messing with their plans big time, whether that is Israel, Iran, or a terrorist nutcase.

It's almost Biblical in conception.

You're pretty good at this whole worst-case-scenario stuff.

If WW3 came about in the middle east, I suspect the true details of it would be a bit more horrifying. <shrugs>

And with the terrorist groups in Iraq taking hostages, torturing them, and executing them it only makes the situation worse.