It will certainly not "be as hard as hell" for the US and poodle to mount the ground offensive from Kuwait. Like Israel, Kuwait owes its very existence these days to the USA, and in fact the military buildup there has already begun. Kuwait has no choice in this matter.
Think of Kuwait as a beachhead. It is quite possible to cram hundreds of thousands of soldiers + material into such a beachhead. That's what they did at Normandy (a much smaller beachhead). Given absolute US/poodle air supremacy, it will also be no problem to breakout of the beachhead and fan out in a north-northwesterly direction, and it should be no problem to drop paratroop/special ops forces to grab the northern Kurdish region. Baghdad will be surrounded on three sides.
_Here_ is where all the difficulties could begin. There is the danger of a long, knock-down, drag-out reduction of Baghdad (you'd be surprised how long it took the Soviet army to reduce surrounded Berlin in 1945, despite overwhelmingly superior forces); there is also a wildcard called Iran, especially after all the work Washington has done to drive these two former enemies together. One cannot rule out some degree of intervention by this "evil axis brother", especially as they contemplate a large imperialist army advancing towards their border. It doesn't have to be a direct crossborder intervention with their own forces. Iran need only keep its borders open to the movement of troops and arms, and the US will be forced to interdict very close to the Iranian border. Scenarios of varying stickiness can be imagined, especially when you consider the effect of Iran's long Persian Gulf littoral on the disposition of the large US-poodle naval force that will be required to back up the invasion.
But it should be noted, in addition, that 1) the invasion has been postponed for a year; 2) Use of Saudi air space is, well, still up in the air; 3) STRATFOR has a pretty detailed report on scattered demonstrations having occured this month in various parts of Saudi Arabia (but not in Riyadh), this in a country where demonstrations are absolutely banned; 4) the redeployment of 8000 Saudi troops to the northwest, near Jordan, apparently in response to this unrest.
But the "war on terror" has had to take a breather for a year in the Middle East - it's "too hot". -Brad Mayer
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 10:31:35 -0700 From: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001 at attbi.com> Subject: Re: U.S. Envisions Blueprint on Iraq Including Big Invasion Next Year
- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Robert Dean" <qualiall_2 at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Cc: <wny-discuss at lists.riseup.net> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 9:34 AM Subject: U.S. Envisions Blueprint on Iraq Including Big Invasion Next Year
<.....> But senior officials now acknowledge that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions. These include avoiding summer combat in bulky chemical suits, preparing for a global oil price shock, and waiting until there is progress toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. <.....>
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It would be hard as hell for the US to attack Iraq from anywhere other than SA and if they acquiesce while their tweaked UN 242 plan is floundering SA itself could buckle under the strain....
THE ROVING EYE The age of the human missile By Pepe Escobar
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