Now that we seem to have started down the path of getting out of Iraq, let’s ask ‘what if’ the worst happens. We won the military war in Iraq in a matter of weeks. But we lost the ‘post-war peace’ to the terrorists. Why? According to one analysis recently declassified documents show British Prime Minister Tony Blair and British Generals in Iraq warning it would be a mistake to ‘disenfranchise the ‘Baath Party.’ It’s not that the British loved the Baathist; their point was in Iraq everyone from the manager of the power station to the head of the water works was required to be a member of the Baath party. Where would replacements be found? Worse, ‘disenfranchising’ every Baathist meant alienating most of Iraq’s intelligentsia. As the British said, Don’t alienate them, co-opt them. What did we do? We removed them all plus we disbanded the Iraqi Army, creating a second corps of dissidents.

That’s all water under the bridge now. But ‘what if’ the worst happens after we withdraw? Well, the worst could be a terrorist backed government coming to power, which would give Al-Qaeda a weapon it now lacks – a nation-state under its ‘control’ as a source of income and a base of operations. If that happens the terrorists will have the money to buy modern technology and weapons.

And ‘what if’ that happens?

The first ‘worse case’ is the Shiites and Sunni’s start slaughtering one another in a full-blown civil war. The next ‘worst’ case is every nation around Iraq is drawn into the battle, turning it into a regional war involving Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. And what’s the absolute ‘worst’ case? Iraq becomes the base for the export of terrorism to the United States and Europe.

Again, British Prime Minister Blair is warning of a potential disaster. His focus is on Europe. Blair has pointed out the problem of unassimilated immigrants in European nations. For years, population has been declining in most of Europe. One result has been the influx of millions of immigrants from the Middle East. But in this case multiculturalism failed. The immigrants, instead of being assimilated, were gheto’ised. Across Europe millions of people live in enclaves where they share little or no cultural empathy – and no loyalty at all – to the nation that hosts them.

In the 1950’s when rioting and terrorism, spillover from France’s colonial war in Algeria, erupted in French cities the government of the Republic of France collapsed. Then there were only a fraction of the unassimilated immigrants in France that there are today.

And, of course, add to that Iran building a nuclear weapon. The one thing Israel can never allow is a nation that is dedicated to its destruction having nuclear weapons. So, it’s hard to see that Israel has a choice. They’ll strike first. And, if they do, that could be the spark that ignites the whole powder keg. It’s nice to think we may get out of Iraq and life will return to normal, but it may be naïve. Instead, we may find lost wars have consequences.

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