• How do you see the situation in Iraq? What do you expect to happen in the near future? When will the Americans start fighting for Baghdad? Will the USA get Saddam Hussein? If so, when will they catch him?


  • Last Sunday I bet with a friend of mine, that America will not reach Baghdad within this week. They covered 350 miles of dessert within a few days, but now they’ve reached habitated areas and there advance will be stalled by defence.
    I don’t expect this war to be over before summer, but I think Saddam won’t survive this year.
    I don’t expect a big movement at the northern front before the end of next week, there might be smaller advances, but these will come to an end quickly.


  • I think 99% of the fighting will be over by June 1. Once the Median and other 3 republican guard divisions are crushed within a few days and people really start to believe Saddam is history you will have an Iraqi bloodbath as Iraqi on Iraqi violence erupts.

    The allies will recruit Iraqis to clean up the garbage that is left taking pot shots.

    BB


  • I bet that fighting won’t be over even if Saddam is killed. Many of the soldiers are not fighting for Saddam but for Iraq. Even people, who don’t like Saddam don’t like the Americans occupying their country. People who left Iraq, for whatever reason are now returning to defend their country. There will be no peace until the Americans will leave.

    When I started this threat I hoped people would write down their expectations so that in the future we can easily compare, which expectations came true.
    I wonder what people like Xi or Deviant:Scripter expect from the war. Do they think the Iraqis will welcome the Americans in Baghdad? Do they think war will be over in no time? What about F_alk, Ozone27 and Yanny? What do you think?
    I would like to have explicit statements, such that in the end it becomes clear who was right.


  • I deleted that last post, because on 2nd thought I decided I didn’t want to speculate.

    Ozone27


  • During the fall of Nazi Germany there were a great deal of fanatical fighters, some in positions of power even planned to have guerilla fighters continue the fight after the final fall of Berlin. However, once the centre of gravity collapsed and people started to learn the truth then the aura of Nazism faded as it was a ‘power’ based philosophy.

    We can only hope this will occur in Iraq and the rebuilding can start quick and the US can get it’s forces out quicker.

    BB


  • @Meijing:

    I bet that fighting won’t be over even if Saddam is killed. Many of the soldiers are not fighting for Saddam but for Iraq. Even people, who don’t like Saddam don’t like the Americans occupying their country. People who left Iraq, for whatever reason are now returning to defend their country. There will be no peace until the Americans will leave.

    When I started this threat I hoped people would write down their expectations so that in the future we can easily compare, which expectations came true.
    I wonder what people like Xi or Deviant:Scripter expect from the war. Do they think the Iraqis will welcome the Americans in Baghdad? Do they think war will be over in no time? What about F_alk, Ozone27 and Yanny? What do you think?
    I would like to have explicit statements, such that in the end it becomes clear who was right.

    i agree with your first point to some degree. Still, it’s a problematic thing to pin down. What does “peace” mean? I don’t think there will be peace in a lot of places until certain elements “leave”. One might argue there is no peace in S. Africa, Ireland, certainly Israel, Indonesia, Columbia, etc. So the Americans might impose a kind of peace, but nothing lasting. At the same time, i’m not certain that the kind of peace we appreciate over here would be appreciated there even after all is said and done and the Americans leave.
    I am puzzled by your second point. This is an impossible prediction for even the generals and Bush to make. I think any prediction that we make would have to be HUGELY qualified and would be meaningless even if we were correct.
    I’ll go with early June,
    still putting down uprisings,
    the odd skirmish,
    but the will have full control of iraq’s oil production by May if not sooner.


  • I think the Iraqis will not be too cooperating, but keep quiet at the beginning. Even in the liberated/occupied areas, many of them think that “Saddam is a good leader”, “he is smart”, “we can live free under him, but have to be servants of the US when they come to stay” etc. I saw pics of that on TV, short after the coalition brought them some food. There even are exile-Iraqis who go back to fight for Hussein.

    So, my prediction:
    the Iraqis will take up arms again should the US decide to stay longer there after defeating Saddam Hussein. They will be quiet in the beginning, but not tolerate a non-arab or non-UN-appointed as the head of their (even temporal) government.


  • I wasn’t following the war during Spring Break. I saw some news on TV, but you hardly get any information. War looks much more positive on TV.

    Why doesn’t Bush or the generals want to make predictions? Why wasn’t the time schedule, which is fullfilled so precisely, presented before war started? Because in that case it would be easy to see if the assumptions on which this war was based were wrong.

    Even correct arguments become wrong, when they are based on the wrong assumptions. So we can’t argue about this war without telling our assumptions, our speculations. Whether we are pro or against war strongly depends whether we expect it to last 2 weeks or 2 years. We certainly don’t have as many informations as the generals, but nevertheless we do and have to make a picture out of the informations they present to us.


  • @Meijing:

    I wasn’t following the war during Spring Break. I saw some news on TV, but you hardly get any information. War looks much more positive on TV.

    Why doesn’t Bush or the generals want to make predictions? Why wasn’t the time schedule, which is fullfilled so precisely, presented before war started? Because in that case it would be easy to see if the assumptions on which this war was based were wrong.

    They don’t want to make predictions because they want to appear as infallible as possible & should circumstances change, they don’t want to be the ones who predicted “easy victory”. There is a fear among the elite that Americans are basically quails who will spook at the slightest setback–that is why there will be no predictions.

    On my part I didn’t want to make predictions (even though I wrote a heck of a long post before I deleted it) because I realized I was characterizing a situation I really knew only about 40% of (my numbers…). That can’t do anything but make me look foolish.:)

    Ozone27


  • Now tell me, is there peace in Iraq?
    Yes, Saddam has hidden and there are no more Iraqi tanks on the battle field, but as long as American soldiers are dieing almost everyday due to attacks, I wouldn’t call that peace.


  • eh, the *war has come to an end. and for the most part there is peace. but what is peace? i mean do you call Down town LA Peace? as far as im concerned Peace is the Presence of Justice combined with the absence of Confilct. so no i do not think there is Peace in Iraq, however although like 90% of the Populace of Iraq is with us, i think in the long run US support is going to fall. and if we make alot of mistakes and things take too long we may be in a world of S**t.

    just my thoughts.

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