I know that the official name is Anbar Awakening to give it a mystical and transcendental flavor, but I don't know if there is a law that requires the bloggers to use the name to help the official propagandists.

It is more like the Co-option of the Enemy by Bribery. Not pithy, but clarifies that the whole thing is doomed to fail one way or the other.

You're right. Maybe placing it in quotes will give it a sarcastic enough emphasis.

Well, ok, maybe there wouldn't be a total meltdown. But compare this prediction with what we were promised going in -- that Iraq would quickly turn into a peaceful, prosperous, secular, pro-American democracy.

Mr. Feith has promised that the proceeds from the book that he just authored will go to charity, as per the sixty minute segments to day, where he looked not only the stupidest man on the planet but the most loathsome human being as well.

As if his donation will absolve him of the complicity in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, including so many Americans.

All the oil from Arabia will not cleanse Mr. Feith's hands of the blood of the dead.

We have two choices:

1. Slow meltdown
2. Rapid meltdown

This won't be magically resolved no matter how long we stay. Quite frankly, the Sunnis and Shias have a better chance at reconciliation if we remove ourselves from the region.

I'd like to think the American people might learn from our blunder in Iraq, but I kind of doubt it.

From Bill Roggio, May 2007:
The formation of the Sahawah Al Anbar, or Anbar Awakening, the grouping of Anbari tribes and former insurgents opposed to al Qaeda's Taliban like rule, traces back to last year [2006], when al Qaeda in Iraq conducted its campaign of murder and intimidation throughout Anbar province. Sheik Abdul Sattar Al-Rishawi and his allies among the tribes and anti al Qaeda insurgent groups began forming alliances in the spring and summer of 2006. In September, the groups established the Jazeera Council in Ramadi, and began working more closely with Coalition forces to begin securing neighborhoods in Ramadi. The Sahawah Al Anbar, which followed the success of the Jazeera Council, was formed in October.

This spring [2007] the Anbar Awakening decided to change its name to Iraqi Awakening, Or Sahawah Al Iraq, in an effort to nationalize the movement.

Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

The Glorious Surge is working! Well, at least for Halliburton and Co. and their shareholders (guess who those are?). Cheers to no-bid contracts! Vote for military genius John McCain! Good thing that the MSM are whoring themselves out to this GOP adulterer in Sedona (ditching your disabled wife - that's real conservative family values!). Otherwise we might get some actual news.

U.S. NATO 'ally' Turkey does not want to "occupy Iraqi Kurdistan or annex it" - they just want to bomb it into submission! U.S. 'ally' Saudi Arabia doesn't have the means to "interfere in a direct, sustained military way" in Iraq (so how important is democracy in the Middle East again?).

Great job!

An American withdrawal from Iraq might lead to a more intense civil war within Iraq itself, but would it also lead to a massive regional meltdown of the kind that war supporters so often war of?

Kevin, you're misstating the question. The question is whether or not a withdrawal would lower the probability of a stable equilibrium in Iraq and the Middle East. The answer is certainly yes as explained by Colin Kahl, Barack Obama’s working group coordinator on Iraq.

http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/11/iraq-guest-post.html

"But the probability of a stable equilibrium if we leave now and cut off support for the ISF (e.g., recent suggestions from the Center for American Progress) before we pull off this delicate balancing act is certainly *much* lower. As the two 2007 NIEs on Iraq concluded, a rapid decline in American support would most likely splinter the ISF along sectarian lines and worsen the sectarian bloodshed."

Kevin always seems to fail in understanding the dynamics of humans beyond the US borders. Particularly Middle Eastern problems take a back seat to some nebulous US-centric political problem and the avoidance of argument. Don't mention the Palestinian/Israeli impasse.

Speculation about "bad news" isn't the half of it.

War was ever unpredictable as is politics, even in the near term. Those who were willing to roll the dice in Iraq, none of them allowed the idea of 4,000 US deaths, the unnumberable physically and mentally damaged, or expenditure of $2 trillion and immeasurable corrosion by corruption -- all predictable -- into the range of risk of the gamble. To step beyond this and envision the human suffering the US has visited on the population, whether directly or indirectly, and the callous way in which this has been done -- the US military and government have studiously avoided measuring -- seems not a concern.

It is as if, in the period the US was involved in WWII (3 2/3 years), during the occupation of a somewhat physically, ethnically, linguistically, culturally and emotionally distant power, the US population had suffered civilian deaths of 1 million to 11 million (We don't know; it's not our business to count!); untold casualties from intrapopular explosions and assassination; 30 million fled to Mexico and Canada and another 37 million displaced internally from their homes. Power on for only half the day (Iraqis were mostly 8 hours or less); unequipped, unsupplied, low-staffed hospitals overloaded by damaged people; who knows what US unemployment rate (60%?) and a barely adequate government issued food ration halved; your children unable to attend school -- particularly if female -- and unable to play outside without risk of kidnap and ransom. A government of your own people you cannot trust. A police and legal system devoid of protection or justice. Worst of all, Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos and ex-Euro white all in an ethnic standoff and forced into the belief that armed grouping is your only route to semi-guaranteed protection. Add on top intra-white fighting -- say Catholic v. Protestant.

We are now getting close to the mess Iraq is in. None of it ouside the bounds of possibility here. It's reality there. Every day.

Put yourself in their shoes. They are no less human or intelligent, and education and opportunity (long term) is minimal.

[I fully realize that Saddam's regime contributed to the fragility of Iraq society. I would also argue that the US and UN (we only use them when they agree with us) could have pressured Iraq internal policy along with the "oil for food" misnomer.]

Wake up to the responsibility of what we have done and created. Wake up to whether we actually do any good at all in the way we operate. Wake up to the cost here at home, among the troops and their families, and to the nation.

And Kevin seems to have no connection to the responsibility for damage done by US policy "for us". There is nothing in Kevin's presentation that implies that we made the bed we lie in.

"...We are now getting close to the mess Iraq is in...."

Sorry. I did proof but missed the double entendre.

I don't mean we are getting close to the same here in the US. I meant my comparative description was getting close to what Iraquis are now suffering, put into US numbers.

We, I hope, will continue to attempt to move toward racial equality. The sooner the better.

So what was "surge" good for, except a political band-aid for McCain-Bush campaign, what now? We are back to square one, just like we knew we would be.

Prehaps James Baker could have another one of his commissions, one that tell the Bush administration how the war isn't working? AND we've got McCain thinking of making Rice his VP, so why not invite John Bolton and whole Bush team right back into the Whitehouse. It's Bush all over again one way or another. Jeebus, Repugs must really be banking on those electronic voting machines.

Or you might want to read what retired General William Odom has to say about withdrawal from Iraq:

" A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely. I have refuted them repeatedly before but they have more lives than a cat. Let try again me explain why they don't make sense.

First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe and effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs and junior officers I have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on military skills.

Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the "domino theory" in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it. The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.

Third, nay sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran's regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies' interest.

I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the commitment of US forces to war in Iraq."

A civil war within Iraq's borders and no warfare going beyond that seems most likely.

I look forward to when the Americans leave Iraq and when the Iraq civil wars have died down or been extinguished completely.

Then Iran will quietly be invited to unite with Iraq, the two creating Greater Iran.

An important counterpoint to the vile influence of the degraded right-wingers who have formulated American policy in the region for decades.

And to hell with Israel if that country can't allow the creation of the country of Palestine, and continue to use Palestinians as a slave race. All of "Israel" had become the land of Palestine, and yet right-wing pigs who always back up the rich and powerful say, "Oh, the Palestinians were all stupid nomads. They never had a country. They've never had the right to rule their own land or have any civil rights."

An American withdrawal from Iraq might lead to a more intense civil war within Iraq itself, but would it also lead to a massive regional meltdown of the kind that war supporters so often warn of?

No. It wouldn't.

The factions within Iraq that are fighting won't just stop fighting because we're gone. They're fighting because they have interests that go well beyond our presence--status in the evolving Iraqi society is based on power and money, so it's very much based on smash-and-grab tactics in order to gain an advantage over others.

Withdrawing US troops SHUTS DOWN THE CASH INFUSION INTO THIS CHAOTIC POWER STRUGGLE. In case all-caps didn't get that across, let me say it boldly:

Withdrawing US troops shuts down the cash infusion into this chaotic power struggle.

There is a direct connection between how we have injected billions into a society with no legal or civil infrastructure. Say, for example, a US Army battalion commander is given responsibility for building a sewage line that runs from a neighborhood under his control to the Tigris River. The money has to be delivered in bundles of $100 bills to pay the workers. Before anything starts, the shiekhs who run things have to be bought off. Then, 120 of their relatives and friends have to be hired to do nothing--this amounts to paying protection to allow a few dozen workers to half-ass the work that needs to be done. Half way through this project, the US Army battalion in place is swapped out for a Marine unit and introductions/protection money shakedown/facetime with the shiekhs has to happen before construction starts back up. More money is thrown into the mix and when the pipe is finally completed, it runs sewage backwards from the Tigris into the neighborhood, giving everyone screaming diarrhea for three months.

Every time cash is injected into this local economy, people trade it for what they need. Excess money goes for luxuries, and in order to make a little more, someone somewhere says, go put an IED over there so the Americans don't forget that this is a violent place and that if they leave, boy, this will turn into a really violent place.

To the neocons--ya'll been suckers for the most basic shakedown there is. As soon as we're gone, as soon as that money stops getting injected into Iraqi society, it'll shake out like this--they'll figure out some other way to steal what money there is from each other and from anyone stupid enough to show up and try to make things better.

And how many terrorist attacks on US soil since we went into Iraq? None.

False, Orwell.

There were anthrax attacks in 2001, shortly after 9/11, against the US Capitol, including the Senate Majority Leader's office (Senator Daschle's). Senator Leahy's office was also targeted. 5 people were killed, more were injured, and the terrorist attack received wide media attention.

Note that the two Senators were dealing with the first Patriot Act bill at the time. The attacks may have been intended to either remove the "obstructive Senators" or coerce them into speedily approving a bill that would weaken our Constitutional protections. (So the anthrax attacks might have been our Reichstag fire.)

Nothing makes me laugh more than watching trolletariat shills cite the Roggio/Yon/BlackFive warbloggers who haven't gotten a goddamned thing right since day one.

Dude--you're quoting Bill Roggio from 2007? What the fuck has he ever gotten right? What the fuck have any of these mental midgets ever come up with that even remotely approaches the truth?

Hey, go find someone who was right. You know, the people who said this was a bad idea in 2003.

Dominos. Imagine a line of dominos...

[echoes of Kissinger]

I'm such an idiot today--"sheikhs" is the word I was looking for.

You know, they run everything in Iraq. Everything. We have never figured that out and used it to our advantage. We keep thinking that the guy with the moustache who wears a business suit runs thing--shades of thinking Ahmed Chalabi was going to be the new leader of Iraq. We could have taken all the money we've spent and put it on pallets and flown over Iraq and let those pallets fly out the back of a C-130 on rollers and it would have money better spent.

Can we just call a moratorium on metaphors disguising as policy? Like "preventing the domino effect"? Conducting a "war on terror"? Preventing a "meltdown"? Pretty please?

We could have taken all the money we've spent and put it on pallets and flown over Iraq and let those pallets fly out the back of a C-130 on rollers and it would have money better spent.

Pale, I thought that is exactly what we did.

"Bush said this would take a while ..."

Winger tactic, when in doubt rewrite history. Bush, famously, declared "Mission Accomplished" nearly five years ago. Accomplished means finished. Boy was he wrong. Not to mention what he had Cheney and the boys peddling -- cake walks and the like.

And comparisons with WWII and the like are equally absurd. This was a war of choice. Bush chose to lead us there, for reasons that have all proved absurd. Those men we lost in WWII we lost because we had to, and because we faced the most formidable army in the word. Here Bush threw away 4000 lives. Threw them away. For nothing, really. And it just shows the failure of judgment of McCain and the wingnuts that they can't see this. What a waste.

And comparisons with WWII and the like are equally absurd.

Why, that's a lie! Saddam had four wooden-deck aircraft carriers on the way to Pearl when we struck. And the bastard had just driven the Brits from the continent with his mighty tank armies.

If the American people knew just what a pathetic military Iraq really had--and how it was corrupt, hollow, poorly equipped at virtually every level and bled completely white from the Iran-Iraq war, we'd lower our estimation of the brilliance of 1991 and we'd raise our indignation against invading in 2003. Remember--in 1991 we were told they were the "4th Largest Army in the World." By 2003 they were still in the top 10, I believe. But they were no threat to Kuwait, much less anyone else. There was no way they were going to mass troops anywhere in the country without us being able to hit the staging areas by air.

The only thing they seemed capable of doing was dispersing artillery shells throughout the country. That rates as the single greatest accomplishment of Iraq's military: stockpiling artillery shells too rusty to fire in as many different locations as possible.

Palre Rider: ...single greatest accomplishment of Iraq's military: stockpiling artillery shells too rusty to fire in as many different locations as possible.

Shows how stupid they are -- we're smart enough to sell our rusty, useless, ammo to our own government for shipment to our allies. Isn't free enterprise a beautiful thing?

PR,
Though it was not my intent, I'm glad I was able to help you start your day with a chuckle.
My intent was simply to enlighten gregor as to the origination of the term "Anbar Awakining/Sahawah Al Anbar." Giving attribution, including date, is a disgusting habit I have not been able to break.

Withdrawal from Iraq would mean a massive blow to Bush's ego, an end to the hope of the neoconservatives to use the US military to reshape the entire Middle East for the security of Israel, and stifle the oil security thing with the permanent military bases and trillion dollar pro-consul embassy pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Though it was not my intent, I'm glad I was able to help you start your day with a chuckle.

Yeah, there's nothing fucking funnier than a war my country is fighting.

Thanks for revealing your true colors--you don't give a shit, period. It's porn for you, writing and talking about a war you're too stupid to understand.

A regional war? The term 'war' requires more specification here. Open conflict between standing armies? Unlikely in the extreme. Interventions across borders? Already happening between Turkey and Kurdistan. Cross-border terrorism? Already happening in all sorts of places.

PR wrote: "Nothing makes me laugh more than watching trolletariat shills cite the Roggio/Yon/BlackFive warbloggers who haven't gotten a goddamned thing right since day one."

As I said, causing laughter was not my intent. You're the one who seems to think it was funny.
As someone who spent a couple years trying to keep American troops alive in a place far away where people I'd never met were trying to kill me on a daily basis, I believe I've earned the right to comment here. To impugn my motives, misconstrue my words and insult my intelligence is, of course, your right, and quite possibly, emblematic of your true colors.

As someone who spent a couple years trying to keep American troops alive in a place far away where people I'd never met were trying to kill me on a daily basis, I believe I've earned the right to comment here.

So you admit you were one of those KBR employees who gave our troops filthy, contaminated water and food?

Hey--comment away. No one's telling you not to spew bullshit. Just reach up and pull your bunched-up panties out of your ass before you realize no one's buying what you're selling.

For someone who assumes so much, so often, you're not very good at it.

For someone who assumes so much, so often, you're not very good at it.

For someone who's panties won't unbunch, you sure are touchy about it.

So what is your claim to moral authority? Did Triple Canopy send you overseas to guard the oil ministry? How many hajjis did you shoot when your driver was going 150kph through Baghdad? What's your claim to fame? Slinging hash in a DFAC at Camp Doha? Driving an uparmored truck in a convoy? Hanging out of a blackhawk with a machine gun, a bandana around your head and with a knife in your teeth?

Never claimed any authority, moral or otherwise.
Keep digging.

An American withdrawal from Iraq might lead to a more intense civil war within Iraq itself, but would it also lead to a massive regional meltdown of the kind that war supporters so often warn of?

I always thought the "argument" was based more on conservative superstition, rather than on a serious foreign policy argument: just like the conservatives seem to live in perpetual fear that all sorts of things, including liberal demonstrations and most of the liberal agenda, may lead to large (mostly African-American) rioting (this is an ugly fear that's mostly below-the-surface, but if you examine some conservatives a lot who aren't on TV or giving a press conference, then you can discover it explicitly admitted to or just about often enough that you begin to recognize the "argument" lurking in the background of even a lot of the publicly-made ones). Just like that superstition, I thought the conservatives just wanted to get people to jump to the concluson that if the dark-skinned Iraqis didn't have some kind of authprity over them, their misbehavior would eventually lead to all the other dark-skinned people of the Middle East becoming excited and acting similiarly. It is, of course, a disgusting argument premised on nothing but racism, which is why it can't be spelled out like that publicly, and something else has to be publicly supplied in the rare instance when specifics are requested.

For the longest time I've felt that a lot of conservatives' ideas and appeal were based on the idea that, inevitably black guys were going to one day start crawling over white people's fences to break their windows and rip-off stuff from their houses. I'm sure some conservatives would deny it utterly and take it as evidence that I don't know what's going on with what conservatives think, but I think that those people are the conservatives who don't know what a lot of people on their own side of the political spectrum are really thinking, and just assume that they do.

Orwell, although Wikipedia now lists this inflated figure:

"Around 25,000 killed or died of disease, 25,000 wounded"

for American Revolutionary War casualties (which apparently includes casualties among non-American allies, as well as deaths due to disease, a hazard not faced so much in modern warfare) the figure I've always heard is something more like this:

"6,188 wounded, 4,435 battle deaths"

And, haven't we reached something like 25,000 wounded already? The Republicans want to keep us in Iraq until we've surpassed the total American battle deaths in the American War for Independence! What a waste of American human life! Just so Republicans can make themselves look cool!

Orwell, although Wikipedia now lists this inflated figure:

"Around 25,000 killed or died of disease, 25,000 wounded"

for American Revolutionary War casualties (which apparently includes casualties among non-American allies, as well as deaths due to disease, a hazard not faced so much in modern warfare) the figure I've always heard is something more like this:

"6,188 wounded, 4,435 battle deaths"

And, haven't we reached something like 25,000 wounded already? The Republicans want to keep us in Iraq until we've surpassed the total American battle deaths in the American War for Independence! What a waste of American human life! Just so Republicans can make themselves look cool!

Wapiti - it's time to take your tinfoil hat off now.

Thersites - rusty artillery shells have big use in Iraq, they make up most of the IEDs. They are not useless weaponry, ask any EOD guy, and the ones who have been maimed by the blasts.

Weenie,

Point taken. Snark retracted. I'm little too quick on the cheap shot at times.

(Sometimes this damn programming job distracts me from the important things.)

Orwell is a Kool-Aid drinker of the most noxious sort - he has been duped by an idiot president and he still thinks he is smart.

We didn't go into Iraq to set up a democracy - it was all about WMDs. Period. Why we are still there, three years after we figured out Saddam had no WMDs, is utter insanity.

This blather about "winning" is meaningless pap for simple-minded fools like Orwell, who see the occupation of a sovereign country as some sort of "game", where, if we can just sink the half-court shot before the buzzer sounds, we "win" the game. Wrong.

Everyone and every country is a loser in this debacle - Twit.

Optical weenie - I don't know why you accuse me of wearing a tinfoil hat. Orwell said that there have been no terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11.

Were there anthrax attacks in the US in the month after 9/11?

Were anthrax letters addressed to Senators Daschle and Leahy?

Was the Senate considering the Patriot Act at the time?

The Title 22 of the United States Code contains the following definition:
The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

We don't know if the letters were mailed by jihadists or so-called American "patriots". Or so-called American patriots posing as jihadists. Either way, it strongly appears to be premeditated and politically motivated, no? So by definition it is terrorism.

The Conservative Deflator wrote:

We didn't go into Iraq to set up a democracy - it was all about WMDs. Period. Why we are still there, three years after we figured out Saddam had no WMDs, is utter insanity.

We didn't go into Iraq because of WMDs. We went into Iraq because the oil industry was hoping to get a windfall. It's possible the administration believed the faulty intelligence, but at any rate, if they hadn't set out to find an excuse to invade Iraq in the first place, they wouldn't have found themselves in the position of uncritically accepting (actually faulty) intelligence that represented what they most wanted to see.

Why we are still there, three years after we figured out Saddam had no WMDs, is utter insanity.

Why we are still there, after 5 years of not discovering WMDs, is politics. The Republicans know it will make them look bad if they do something as big as the Iraq war and it fails, and that it will hurt them in elections. So all they have to do is prolong the effort, and they will be able to keep a lot of uninformed people from saying they failed, because the effort isn't over yet. As long as we don't start having utter disaster, like daily casualties of around 20 troops, they can keep up a brave face.

So regular Americans die in Iraq just because Republicans don't want to lose an election, and because of our corrupt mass-media, millions of Americans will (perhaps) never understand that.

Wapiti - if it were a "jihadist plot" or "american patriot plot" a lot more senators and members of the house would have been targeted. Leahy and Daschle being "targeted" alone doesn't give evidence of an organized plot.
Don't forget, there were lots of other places where anthrax showed up and people died as a result.

There isn't sufficient data out there, at this time, for anyone to be able to make any credible assertions as to motivation.

If the American people knew just what a pathetic military Iraq really had--and how it was corrupt, hollow, poorly equipped at virtually every level and bled completely white from the Iran-Iraq war, we'd lower our estimation of the brilliance of 1991 and we'd raise our indignation against invading in 2003

Let's not so casually dismiss what was done to it in 1991 - the loss of thousands of armored vehicles and tens of thousands of troops had a serious impact too.

Optical weenie. You seem to need it parsed out.

The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

premeditated? Yes, the action of getting and preparing anthrax letters would certainly be premeditated.

politically motivated? All indications are yes. Action was made against 2 senior Democratic Party US Senators as well as others, no Republican office holders were targeted as far as we know.

violence? Yes, 5 people died as a result. Others were injured.

perpetrated against noncombatant targets? Yes, non-combatants were targets.

by subnational groups or clandestine agents? Yes. It was not an overt military attack, and no claim of responsibility ever made. I think that lone wolf (Eric Rudolph) or small group (Timothy McVeigh) actors would still count as subnational groups.

usually intended to influence an audience. Not a required element, but the attacks were the news for 2-3 weeks.

I've done military Article 32 investigations (equivalent to civilian grand jury). If I were investigating this (assuming we had the person(s) who mailed the letters), absent some plausible explanation from the defense as to how an attack on 2 US Senators was not political, I'd recommend that my commander proceed with the case.

You accused me of wearing tin-foil. I'd suggest that you have some serious blinders on, if you think that the anthrax attacks were not terrorism.

We could have taken all the money we've spent and put it on pallets and flown over Iraq and let those pallets fly out the back of a C-130 on rollers...

Aha! So, that's why we have an inflation problem now. Bribes would be "off-budget" no? No need to even borrow it. Just turn on the press...

Let's not so casually dismiss what was done to it in 1991 - the loss of thousands of armored vehicles and tens of thousands of troops had a serious impact too.

Actually, a fair number of Republican Guard units were allowed to escape with their vehicles. The "Highway of Death" actually caught tens of thousands of civilians--mostly Palestinians who were working with the Iraqis against the Kuwaitis--and the regular army looters who disobeyed orders. We left enough of the Iraqi Army intact to prevent Iran from surging over the border.

Part of the first Bush administration's calculus was to make a show of force but to leave enough of an Iraqi army structure in place to prevent a resurgence of the kind of fighting that had only just ended in 1988.

Most of the nations in the region do not have the kind of industrial development to wage a modern world war. None of the potential nations, besides Iran, have been involved in any successful defense, let alone offensive wars. These nations, except Turkey and Iran, are incapable of sustaining such a war and would probably start their own domestic revolutions if they tried to start one, which might be a good thing.