Loading ...ZERO HEDGE
The scenario I see is the first attack will likely be against the most heavily defended target, the US embassy and the Green Zone. The ISIS fighters are not strong enough to take the heavily fortified green zone by direct assault and so it will probably fail.
The US will then attempt to fly in reinforcements to the airport and this will be when ISIS will start mortar fire and attempt to close the Baghdad airport as well as attack any convoys through the Sunni neighborhoods heading to the Green Zone. They will likely be able to shut down the airport, thus forcing reinforcements and embassy staff leaving to use helicopters for transportation to airfields further south in Iraq or maybe even to Kuwait. Closing the airport will be a major public relations victory for ISIS.
A siege of the Green Zone and American embassy will likely then take place and the US will be forced to destroy by air the Sunni neighborhoods surrounding the area from the zone west to the airport at a minimum resulting in heavy Sunni civilian causalities. Once again, more bad PR for the United States.
Eventually, the US may well be forced to close the embassy and withdraw from the Green Zone, which will result in videos that remind the American public of the Saigon collapse back on April 30, 1975. This would be a tremendous PR victory for the extremists, resulting in more fighter recruits.
Finally, if the US is forced to withdraw from their fortified embassy then, of course, ISIS will take over America’s largest embassy in the world. Note, this embassy compound can hold 35,000 American personnel and is basically a small city-state within Baghdad that is massively defended.
This, again, is another victory for ISIS. Finally, the US may well decide to destroy the entire Green Zone and embassy by air to prevent its occupation by the terrorists. This will provide yet more videos – the US destroying its biggest embassy in addition to our earlier air attacks directed at our own tanks and trucks taken by ISIS troops when the Iraq army ran away from Mosul and northern Iraq.
Although the Bush invasion of Iraq has been a costly tragic mistake for all involved, we would do well to never again put US troops back on the ground there. Otherwise, our other economic and financial weaknesses and major threats to our national interests, including the end of the dollar as the world reserve currency, could happen far sooner when combined with a major military defeat and loss of prestige that does not have to take place.
I will be writing more about what happens on the home front to private wealth, prosperity and property when empires collapse and why American investors should look now at possible safe haven opportunities and global investment alternatives to survive and prosper in the future. Remember, all empires die but – although seldom covered in the history books – it is never a pleasant experience for the citizenry.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-26/are-we-ready-fall-baghdad