How many US citizens did the Islamic extremists manage to kill in the period between 1979 and the start of Bush's presidency?
How many US citizens have been killed by foreign Muslims during Bush's presidency?
What is the number killed per annum in the 2 periods?
As regards your other question.
What would happen to the overall war against Islamic Extremism if the US lost the war in Iraq?
The US has already lost the war in Iraq.
If the US keeps trying to fight it, the Islamic Extremists will grow yet stronger.
There are no good solutions.
Option 1
The US should seek to withdraw all forces from Iraq as soon as possible, preferably within the next 6 months.
There are several scenarios possible in this event.
1. The Shia's and Sunni's will keep on fighting each other for a while.
This one's a given, whatever the US does.
At least the US won't be spending $100bn a year on the war effort.
At least US troops won't be in the middle of it any more, getting killed and wounded.
2. A strong dictator may rise up and take over the country.
This probably means going back to square one with a Saddam substitute who may be either Sunni or Shia.
3. A puppet government of Iran may take over.
4. The conflict may escalate into a wider regional conflict with Saudi and other Sunni's fighting Iran's Shia's.
This outcome may not be as bad as reported.
It might blow the strength out of both Iran and Saudi, both of which are currently dangerous to US interests.
The Sunni's and Shia's would start hating each other more and the hatred would be less directed at the US.
There is a circa 2m bpd over capacity for oil production now.
In 2008 it is expected to be over 4m bpd.
Both countries would need to pump oil like mad to pay for the war effort they were now involved in.
The oil price might actually plummet.
The civilian populations of Iran and/or Saudi might rise up against their respective governments and seek more moderate government.
Extreme in the case of Iran.
Despotic in the case of Saudi.
5. Iraq may split into 3 partitions.
Shia's, Sunni's and Kurds.
There are a lot of mixed Sunni/Shia areas.
Expect a few massacres and a lot of population movement in this scenario like the India/Pakistan partition.
6. The population may get fed up with fighting a civil war after a while and look to form a reasonable government.
Option 2
Reduce the US presence to minimal levels.
The US presence would remain in a very few strongly fortified bases and not venture out.
The purpose of this presence would be to distribute the money that would otherwise be spent on the war effort to moderate Iraqi's. Some ideas for this have already been posted.
Current contracts with US companies for aid/reconstruction would be cancelled.
It would be up to the Iraqi's as to who they want to use for all such work and whether they wanted to retain any of them under revised terms.
Regards,
Ian
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