Hiya Doug,

Total American withdrawal. An extremely interesting hypothesis.

Now what would that do?

1. Scare the hell out of the United Nations. As pointed out by both your President, last September, and by your Secretary of State, yesterday, the United Nations, as a credible international organisation, has arrived at a defining moment - Whether it likes it, or not, it must act, and it must act with convincing authority. If the U.S. withdraws, then UN knows that it will become nothing more than a totally irrelevant talking shop.

2. The United states would then have to place it's reliance on defence from "international terrorism", on increasing awareness and counter-measures domestically, and, in investing heavily on developing their own high-grade, world-wide intelligence gathering network. This cannot be regarded as providing any guarantee that attacks such as the current administration are warning about will not happen, in fact America's withdrawal will actually increase the odds of such an even happening. Irrespective of future American presence, withdrawal, engagement or isolation - the U.S. is the proclaimed target. (I was going to add the admonition "Defend yourselves as best you can" - but the guys you have in office at present are already doing that to an audience that apparently is totally unappreciative of that threat or their efforts).

3. Having withdrawn from an extremely vital region would create a vacuum that in the normal course of things will encourage one of the following. It may encourage those within the region to act, in a manner they would would otherwise have been more circumspect about. It may encourage others outside the region to engage and fill that vacuum. Either way the prognosis for the region as a whole would not be hopeful or beneficial and countries whose entire economic well-being is reliant on "Gulf" oil would become extremely vulnerable and anxious.

4. For Iraq itself, the inspection programmes could be brought to an end, either by increased non-cooperation, or, by the expulsion of the inspection teams. Iraq would then petition for all UN sanctions to be lifted, on the premise that since 1998 they have been a joke, and that the UN no longer has the means to enforce them. Iraq would then be free to pursue whatever course the Ba'ath regime in power choses.

5. Should any real emergency situation arise - there is nobody capable of dealing with it, or to give potential protagonists cause to think before they act. So the UN would be constrained to act as it did in Rwanda, i.e. sit on the side lines uttering extremely eloquent dialogue until such time as the killing stops, after which they turn up, pontificate as to the evil that is man and depart the scene having done nothing apart from possibly set up some lame-duck tribunal that eventually becomes part of the established UN junket circuit. However given the rhetoric and statements made within certain European countries, I would rather hope that they were nominated or earmarked to supply any forces required to intervene in said emergency situations, the U.S. & UK of course would stay out of it completely.

Well Doug,

It certainly doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me, the only guy who seems to come out ahead in the above is Bobert's pal Saddam Hussein.

Peace and Love

Teribus.