Having had military training and having studied a fair amount of military history and science while realizing that most people in the US have not had military training, I feel it is important to do a strategic analysis of the invasion of Iraq in order to help most of you to better understand what is going on and what you can expect.
First, you must understand that there are a number of militarily small to medium countries around the world involved in the training, financing, equipping, and harboring of terrorist groups or individuals. Invading all of these countries will be timely, expensive, and cost a lot of soldiers' lives. Therefore, it is militarily most expedient to intimidate the weaker countries into capitulation by conquering the largest and most powerful countries first.
Of these, Iraq had the largest most powerful army and shares borders with three of the worst and most active countries in the terrorist war against the world which also have three of the strongest armies of the countries supporting the terrorist war including Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The Democratic Party, in an effort to win the next presidential election, is claiming that Iraq was not an enemy to the US because they did not locate a training camp run specifically by Al Quaeda even though one camp was shown to be closely associated with Al Quaeda. The fact is that there were a number of camps for different terrorist groups, Saddam has been openly supporting these and other terrorist groups, and a terrorist waging war against the world is a terrorist.
Of the latter countries, Syria is the most crucial for the conquest of Iraq from a strategic basis in that she is land locked with Lebanon to her west, Turkey to her north, Iraq to her east, and Israel (whom President Bush doesn't want to be drawn into our military actions because he knows it will be used to unit the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world against the US) to her south. The border Syria shares with Iraq is her longest and least defensible border.
Saudi Arabia is the next most crucial from the point of military strategy concerning the conquest of Iraq. She has a large coast line to the west for an amphibious assault, several other shorter coast lines, and a long border with Iraq. A strong land-based army in Iraq makes the conquest of Saudi Arabia much easier and faster meaning that fewer US soldiers' lives will be lost.
Iran is more easily accessible to the US without the conquest of Iraq because she has a long coast line on her south which can be used for an amphibious assault and shares a long border to her east with Afghanistan which we just conquered providing the US allies with a strong military presence and threat to Iran. Conquering Iraq places a very large military presence on Iran's western border giving the US and her allies a three front assault against Iran.
This means that Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are four of the most powerful terrorist countries in the world with North Korea being the fifth of the top five countries supporting the terrorist war.
The US conquering Iraq took out a terrible enemy to the world and a monster while providing a militarily strategic position threatening three of the worst remaining terrorist countries in the world at one time. Some would say that it put the US at risk because it makes it possible for all three countries to gang up on the US at once with a three front attack but the US military has shown that it could easily whip all three at once plus the US has an army presence still to the east of Iran. It is very likely that the US even wanted two or more of these countries to try to gang up on us giving our military a reason to keep marching for those countries' capital cities. Unfortunately, none of those countries took the bait so that the US will have to prove a justification to the UN for conquering those countries.
Having a huge military presence in Iraq, provides the US and her allies with the potential for a rapid conquest of any of three of the top four remaining terrorist countries in the world with a decreased cost in soldiers' lives.
When I was a kid growing up on really bad streets, I had to do a lot of street fighting just to survive. I learned quickly that, when confronted by two or more bad guys who have decided they want to whip on you, the first thing you do while they are still talking is to determine which bad guy is the toughest and attack him first. You see, the other bad guys can't beat him and are using his fighting ability to bolster their confidence in fighting you. If you quickly knock their best fighter on his butt, it will shoot their confidence to pieces, cause them to hesitate, and give you a better chance of winning the fight. As a matter of fact, most of the time, if you knock their two or three best fighters on their butts really fast, the rest will cut and run.
I feel that is exactly what Bush has done. He just knocked the two toughest bullies in the gang on their butts by conquering Afghanistan and Iraq while tactically positioning himself, is cleaning up the mess, and is getting ready for number three. The strategy is already working in that, as soon as Saddam Hussein was in custody, Libya's Omar Quadafy capitulated. This single capitulation by one of the worst terrorist countries in the world has already saved time, money, and from hundreds to thousands of lives by negating the invasion of Libya.
Syria and Iran are currently supporting the continued efforts to destabilize post-war Iraq by sending in terrorists. Syria and Iran know that, as soon as Iraq is stabilized, they will mostly likely be the next to go. This puts Assad and the Iranian leaders in a terrible position because, if they doesn't continue to wage war against the rest of the world, they will be killed by their Muslim colleagues (see my site on the Koran) and, if they do continue to wage war against the rest of the world, they will be captured or killed by the US allies. This is also true for the other top Muslim terrorist countries including Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been making some token efforts at cleaning up the terrorist army of Al Quaeda which is better than 90% funded by Saudi Arabia and its terrorists are 90% Saudi's.
The Democratic Party and liberal media nonsense about not yet finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is political rambling hurting the war against terrorism. First, the reason the UN insisted on sending weapons inspectors into Iraq before the war is because the intelligence agencies for every country on the planet and the UN all knew that Saddam still had weapons of mass destruction with France, Germany, Russia, and China being the countries who have made the most money selling the technology and materials for building those weapons. The US not having found these weapons just means that the US has not had adequate time to find relatively small weapons in a country the size of California or France. By using these weapons to win the next presidential election and stating that they would not have gone into Iraq, the Democratic Party is bolstering the confidence of the other terrorist countries. They are now hoping that their bacon can be saved by a Democrat being elected permitting them to continue their terrorist war against the world with impunity.
This hope is causing these countries to support the destabilization effort in Iraq and is costing soldiers' and civilian lives along with time and money. It is helping the terrorist countries' war against the world and will make it more difficult for the US to justify the invasion of these countries to the UN .
Following the next election, I expect President Bush to go into Syria from Iraq because Syria has given the US the most reason for invasion. She has been openly supporting the terrorist activities against the US allied military which is an act of war in-of-itself. This does not include the well known fact that she has been training, financing, haboring, and equipping terrorists longer than any other country.
The Syrian Army is one of the largest and most powerful remaining armies owned by a terrorist country but will quickly fall before a massive assault by the US led allies. This war could be over in a matter of days.
Please note that, even though the soldiers for the 1st, 3rd, and 4th ID's, the 101st Airborne, and other military units are being sent back state side for rest, their weapons such as tanks, trucks, and artillery are not leaving Iraq. The soldiers can be transported much more quickly and less expensively than the equipment. All President Bush will have to do is fly a few thousand soldiers back to their equipment which will only take a few days to maybe a few weeks instead of months. Other military units are being flown in to use those weapons to stabilize Iraq until the next invasion.
I would approach the invasion of Iran differently. When we conquered Iraq, we found a fair sized Iranian rebel army being funded and supported by Saddam. We quickly disarmed this group but they still seem to be present with nothing more being said about them.
I would provide better training for this group, arm them, change their name to the Iranian Freedom Fighters, provide them with tactical support, and send them into Iran as the lead unit heading towards Tehran flanked and followed by US allied military units. An Iranian freedom fighters unit leading the assault on Iran along with the current dissatisfaction by many Iranians with their government would probably insight a revolt by the people saving US allied soldiers' lives and preventing the current problems faced in Iraq. It would easily be seen as the Iranian people freeing themselves instead of an invasion especially if the Iranian Freedom Fighters were televised leading the fight during the invasion.
Most likely, after the fall of Syria and Iran, Saudi Arabia will capitulate giving up all of the Al Quaeda terrorists and supporters just to survive. If not, then the conquest will be fast with the rest of the remaining countries supporting the terrorist war against the world quickly capitulating. That is, unless certain Democrats get elected as president. Then we will have a real mess on our hands with more attacks like 9/11.