the citizens of Iraq are a heavily armed people
Yes of course.
I think the point I was making is to first look at the military capabilities of armed citizenry, militias, and the military. These are the first responders.
I believe the Kurds would stay at home. They have no love for Iran but are closely allied with the US.
The Sunnis would probably take advantage of the changing political landscape which would become complicated by Iranian backed Shia resistance, thus Iraqi Shias may be fighting two wars.
The Shia response would undoubtedly be the militias first. Both the Badr's and Sadr's would align themselves as allies intent on immediate expulsion of the occupiers. They would be joined by whatever Iraqi military units are Shia while the Sunnis/Kurds would go their separate way. Current estimates range the militias at about 20k each and 180k total military but reduced by my estimate of 25k for Sunnis/Kurds. Thus there will be approximately 175k ready soldiers. Unfortunately for the Iraqis their military has demonstrated a lack of combat worthiness against fellow Iraqs, so we don't know what they would do against heavily armed Americans we can simply reduce their effectiveness summarily by some variable factor. I will choose .5 as it is far better than current evaluations of their effectiveness.
Iraq has an available pool of about 5M men of military age but that number is reduced by 1/2 for reasons noted above. There is no doubt some percentage of those men would join in the retaliation effort. But don't forget support. I estimate 85% support, either spiritual or material, and thus we are at 375k active available fighters. Most of these would be limited to small arms.
Iraqis have very limited air power which would undoubtedly be immediately neutralized by US forces in order to command the skies.
US actions would be predicated on defense rather than offense, thus there would be a change in tactics.
I think what I am saying is even though here may be an immediate response against the US forces, it by no means implies the destruction of those forces. Of greater consequence would be the international response especially if the Iraqis rise up against the American forces and demand their removal from Iraqi soil. I suspect no country would support the US and in fact would probably try to broker a cease fire to extricate the Americans.
I had not thought of this possibility previously and thanks for advising such. The problem I see is I suspect no one is considering it as a possibility. McCain when asked about leaving Iraq by al-Maliki, stated al-Maliki would not do such a thing. I think this is typical of the kind of thinking these people do. In this respect I don't think even if someone has thought of this possibility it has not entered into consideration by VP Cheney.
I am going to do some more thinking on this
the Sadrists ... are indeed more than a match for the Americans
As above I included both major militia groups. Don't be confused by American failure to "eradicate" the Sadrists. The reasons are more of a political nature than a military one. The Sadrists are more than capable in a stand up fight against the Iraqi military or against the Badr Corps, however without air support they are limited to asymmetric tactics.
The Americans have respected the holy places which the Sadrists have fortified and thus the Americans were severely inhibited in their actions. This would not be the same case if any of the militias came after the Americans in their own bases. The attacks would be most probably mortar attacks which require a more effective prevention.
They are deeply nationalistic and anti-interventionist, but let us not forget that Muqtada's fealty is to Khamenei over Sistani, and he has never diverged from a policy of alliance with Iran. Not subservience, but alliance. In truth, he is not opposed in principle to alliance with the US. He is opposed to the Occupation.
This is confusing to me. What does it mean to say al-Sadr owes fealty to Ayatollah Khamenei? Seems you want to intimate something but don't say it.
I suspect al-Sadr represents a divergent path. He is more independent of Iran (can anyone say any Iraqi Shias are truly independent of Iran?)than the other parties, but remains committed to governance of the people just as his father did. I also suspect there is a closer relationship between al-Sistani and al-Sadr than you believe. Since 2004 al-Sistani has been using al-Sadr as a conduit for his personal political beliefs and al-Sadr in return has been using al-Sistani as his religious benefactor.
Anyway there is some momentary wiggle room while all the players take their seats by election time. There is an interesting article,
To Bomb, or Not to Bomb That is the Iran question by Reuel Marc Gerecht, one of the leading neocon foreign policy theoreticians, which is not only pertinent but offers neocon insight into their thinking.
