Winners and losers

From The Washington Post:

The House last night brushed aside weeks of angry White House rhetoric and veto threats to narrowly approve a $124 billion war spending bill that requires troop withdrawal from Iraq to begin by Oct. 1, with a goal of ending U.S. combat operations there by next March.

The Senate is expected to follow the House's 218 to 208 vote with final passage today, completing work on the rarest of bills: legislation to try to end a major war as fighting still rages. Democrats hope to send the measure to the White House on Monday, almost exactly four years after President Bush declared an end to major combat in a speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. That would be a particularly pungent political anniversary for Bush to deliver only the second veto of his presidency.

I have said before that I take this as evidence that the troop surge must be working. The Democrat Party has become so invested in their opposition to this war that they cannot survive as a majority party if the US wins. All that it will take is a reasonably free, reasonably stable, reasonably free Iraq which does not support terrorism and which is exporting a steady stream of oil to help keep world prices down to cause a massive shift in American public opinion.

The advancing of the primaries by some of the largest states has forced the serious candidates of both parties to begin to campaign in earnest earlier than they ever have before. This means that the public is beginning to pay attention earlier than ever before. A victory for the US now would be the best possible thing for Republicans and the worst possible thing for Democrats.

A US victory in Iraq would also be the best possible thing for Iraq and for all the decent people of the Middle East who do not support the Global Jihad and simply wish to live their lives in peace and security.

A US victory in Iraq would be the best possible thing for American workers and investors because the decrease in the world price of oil due to the increased supply and the lessening of fears of regional instability would lead to a general lowering of prices across the economy. This holds true across the entire planet. Even working people in Europe and China would have better lives if America won in Iraq.

Another group who would profit from an American victory in Iraq is all the people who will not be killed or maimed in future terrorist attacks which will not occur if militant Muslims lose hope in their cause. History teaches us that militant Islam will go dormant if it is defeated on the battlefield and its adherents see no hope of reversing their loses. Islamists have staked all their hopes for the future of the Jihad on their ability to drive the Americans out of Iraq in humiliation. If this fails it is almost a certainty that the Islamists will return their attention to their slow demographic conquest of Europe leave the resumption of the shooting war with the West until the second half of the 21st century.

Of the groups which will profit from an American defeat in Iraq the first is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda could claim that it drove the Great Satan off of sacred Islamic soil. It would regain its place as the premier terrorist organization in the great jihad to rid the world of the freedom to be anything but a fanatical Muslim. It would once again be awash in recruits and funds and be able to plan and execute those attacks on American soil which it has been dreaming of doing.

Another beneficairy of American defeat would be Iran. Iraq has a majority Shiite population. Without the US there to stop it Iraq would be drawn into an Iranian led Shiite block along with Syria (and, before its over Lebanon). A Shiite block which would be nuclear armed and at odds with the rest of the Middle East on sectarian grounds. This is a recipe for $6.00 per gallon gas and economic recession in the developed world and depression everywhere else.

A nation which would be especially hard hit in this scenario would be Red China. Dramatically higher energy prices would threaten to stall or even reverse their explosive economic growth. This could very well spur them to an attempt to completely annex the Spratley Islands, triggering a regional war which could draw in the United States.

Another winner to emerge from an American defeat in Iraq would be the oil companies whose profits would go through the roof if petroleum prices were to massively increase. This would ingite a boom in oil exploration and could even wind up overcoming American environmentalist's opposition to increased domestic oil drilling. We could wind up with offshore oil rigs off the coast of Florida and large scale drilling in Alaska. This would be an obvious windfall for companies which provide services for the oil industry, like Halliburton, as well. Too bad Dick Cheney doesn't own any Halliburton stock, he would clean up.

Of course the most visible group (to Americans) who would profit from American defeat in Iraq is the Democrat Party in the US. An American loss in Iraq would put Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton in the White House and give the Democrats a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Look at who wins if America loses. Osama bin Laden, Nancy Pelosi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hillary Clinton, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Harry Reid. This association, which amounts to a practical alliance even if no one likes to say it out loud, doesn't seem to trouble Pelosi, Clinton and Reid.

Does it bother you?