President Bush has made it clear regardless of civil war or no civil war the united states will be in iraq and afghanistan beyond 2008, and it would be up for future presidents to decide if the united states will be in iraq/afghanistan/ and possibly iran. What are the economic repercussions of this situation? It currently costs 8 billion to stay in iraq, but wouldnt it go up drastically if their was a civil war? And could the united states afford, staying in iraq? Shouldnt the dividend tax cuts, and other tax cuts be cut themselves to pay for the extended stay.
Air strike possible, but forces staying in iran? No way, US needs nearly another at least 500,000 soldiers I see ZERO chance US occupying iran and some are dreaming of regime change
well depends on who you talk to. Alot of people are talking about limited occupation. Like oilfields, and strategic cities. Im more concerned with the economic repercussions of staying in iraq. alot of investors were hoping for a speedy withdrawal. But it looks like it will be beyond 2008, regardless of the situation. If the costs skyrocket, wouldnt it jepordize the tax cuts extensions. And with the dems taking over congress in late this year, it justs seems more likely, that they would not be renewed.
I agree there is no chance of us ever occupying Iran. Iranians are just as crazy if not crazier then the Iraqs'. The Iranians will have there people hiding in every tree, bush, and spider hole around the country. Plus there military generals just got a lesson next door of how the U.S military takes over a country.
Too late, because iranian have watched and read every scenarios possible and that's why US prefers Sanction rather than military attack, because later one don't work at least for now US don't usually listen and need approval from others, and if invasion worked, they had gone for it Today Bush announced forces will be in Iraq for years, and it's up to the next US president whether to stay or leave
Agree. In other words, what would be the economic impact of leaving the middle east an unstable/uncivil wreck? Or we could always send all the arabs to Canada!!! You guys just love extra taxes and socialist regimes.
If we are considering the Iraq war as a trade or an investment then this is a bad trade. Paul Wolfowitz said that the war was going to pay for itself within 6 months using the profits from crude oil and that American troops would probably be gone in a year as Iraqis' greeted us as liberators, lol. We would have then left a democratic republic in the heart of the Middle East, friendly to America. One of the main rules of trading is don't let a short term trading loss turn into a long term investment. This is exactly what we are doing in Iraq. Notice how our time line for our presence in Iraq keeps growing as things get worse and our loss deepens. Had we left as soon as the insurgency started (cut our intial losses) to create problems because we realized that our presence was attracting extremists from around the world and within the country; the insurgency possibly would have stayed small and petered. The insurgents would have had nothing to fight against if American Christian soldiers were not occupying the entire country. While we would have not left with all our objectives met, I doubt we would be as worse off as right now with 130,000 of our fellow Americans acting as sitting ducks attracting every psycho in the Muslim world to go shoot them.
But we are approaching half a trillion dollers for iraq, not including afghanistan. If we are talking about 08 and beyond like president bush suggests, we are talking in the trillions of dollers. I just dont see that as a fair investment. Especially if you have other economic and political priorities. If you want tax cuts, and you want to lower the deficit, then something has to give. Like the tax cuts and dividend cuts. And more importantly marriage penalty and estate taxes. There are real economic implications. We cant just eat our cake and not decide to lose wieght. If you want to make iraq an investment for the longterm, then you better be willing to take the short term economic consequences.