Reply #: It is a lose-lose scenario. [View All]

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

If the area is "pacified" with the deaths of many Iraqis who then become martyrs, hatred of the Americans will become entrenched among the largest ethnic group in Iraq who will then become a determined resistance and source of revolt.

If many soldiers are lost, regardless of the slaughter of Iraqis, this will not play well with the American public who have become more and more aware that imperium doesn't come from a "cakewalk".

The bottom line is that empire building and conquest does not function well in a free democratic society that is able to vote the war machinery fueled by the blood of its sons out of power.