The Cheney front in the war on Terra

King Abdullah II tried to tell Dick Cheney in spring of 2002 that this sort of thing would happen. Juan Cole wrote at the time, a year before the Iraq War:

In Jordan King Abdullah II was clearly extremely disturbed by the idea of a war. He knew it would throw the Jordanian economy again back down to the level of Chad, as happened in 1991, that it would bring angry crowds into the street (thousands already came out Saturday for demonstrations in Amman over Palestine), and that it had the potential if he stood with the US to provoke a second Jordanian Civil War. His reaction was almost apocalyptic. He said such a war could go (in Robin Wright of the LA Times's report) '"completely awry" and even backfire, producing a civil war in Iraq that could involve neighboring countries--and even have a ripple effect in the United States and Europe.' He added, "It's the potential Armageddon of Iraq that worries all of us, and that's where common sense would say, 'Look, this is a tremendously dangerous road to go down."

The Soviet ( Commissar's? ) concept for military occupation of Afghanistan was based on the following:

Stabilizing the country by garrisoning the main routes, major cities, airbases and logistics sites;
Relieving the Afghan government forces of garrison duties and pushing them into the countryside to battle the resistance;
Providing logistic, air, artillery and intelligence support to the Afghan forces;
Providing minimum interface between the Soviet occupation forces and the local populace;
Accepting minimal Soviet casualties; and, strengthening the Afghan forces, so once the resistance was defeated, the Soviet Army could be withdrawn.

Raqization? Bring it on!