Predictions for 2007, and one surprising death
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/01/predictions_for_2007_and_one_s.html?nav=rss_blogWilliam M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
A surge of troops in Iraq now a foregone conclusion -- the Democratic Congress will prove to have neither the courage nor vision to stop the President -- what does 2007 hold out for national security?
I've made some predictions, mindful that I can be clever and middle of the road enough to be safe and reasonable. Instead though, I'd thought I'd go way out on a line -- Cheney indicted, the 9/11 conspirators in the U.S. government finally come forward, peace and reconciliation in Iraq (NOT) -- it's just that I think not much will change this year, except that there will be one big death...
Iraq: ''I think the American people understand this war perhaps better than anybody gives them credit for,'' Leon Panetta said late in December. Panetta, who was President Clinton's chief of staff and one of the Democratic members of the Iraq Study Group, uttered perhaps the most important point about public opinion and the American future in that country.
If they believe, Panetta said, that the president is indeed approaching the problem with what he himself calls "fresh eyes," then "they're going to give him some room."
I'm afraid this just isn't possible. Nothing is going to change in Iraq in 2007. The reasons are manifold: the President is too dense, too stubborn, has a distorted sense of American honor and his own credibility, or even has such superior intelligence and vision about the fight -- but for whatever the reasons might be, the surge will happen, a battle of Baghdad will be fought with the same old "wack-a-mole" outcome, fighters will move elsewhere until we are done, the casualties will continue, Iraqi security forces will continue not to be able to do the job, the Iraqi government will be itself sectarian and nationally weak.