Let's prognosticate... Post your predictions about how the Iraq mess will go for the next 2 years

[Bucky]

In another thread, I predicted that our leaving will be inevitable, and probably will happen at the request of the Iraqi government as Maliki or the strong man who kills and replaces him comes to realize that future survival means keeping the Shiites happy and the Kurds in line, not keeping the Americans happy and the killing focused on civilians instead of American troops.

Here's my prediction in ten steps:

Step one - The president will try his surge. It will fail. Congress will wrangle and Jim Baker will take Junior back out to the woodshed.

Step two - At some point in all the bitching over the next six months, Bush will be forced to agree to some stips from Congress

Step three - Those stipulations will require more authority being handed over to Maliki or the strong man who replaces him

Step four - As the surge creates higher body counts, peaking over this coming summer, Maliki will grow balls

Step five - Maliki or his successor, responding to local pressures, will start pushing for the US to leave quicker

Step six - Ahmed Chalabi will be reported assassinated by insurgents or more extreme Shiite factions. Some DUer will say Rove did it

Step seven - Reports of Chalabi's death will turn out to be wrong and I personally will be very disappointed

Step eight - After extensive hemming and hawing, the Bush administration will realize they're cornered and relent

Step nine - US troops will start to pull out in the Spring of 08. Bush will announce another mission accomplished

Step ten - A small Marine force will remain to guard the Babelesque embassy in Baghdad and train Iraqis and die just a few week.

[illinoisprogressive]

1. I predict that bushie boy

will go head to head with the dems. The gop, in tatters over the issue will have enough pissed off congressmen to side with the dems and they will be forced to call a constitutional crises. Then, they will be forced to start impeachment hearings when a pouting Bushie will throw bombs at Iran just to stamp his foot.
During the hearings cheney will be impeached as well and Nancy Pelosi will become America's first woman president.
She will save America and end the war and make peace with the middle east. While the hearings are going on Cheney will accidentally shoot himself and Bushie will not go to trial when it's found his IQ is really 75.
They will resign him.
Since Pelosi is such an effective president, with Murtha as her vp, Hillary will feel so insignificant she withdraws her nomination.

[volstork]

2. my dream come true n/t

[Bucky]

4. I just LOVE your predictions.

I don't believe them, but I absolutely love 'em! Well, except for the Murtha part. She'd probably nominate a DLCer just to cover her bases for '08. The fun part of your prediction is that, since we've crossed the halfway mark in Bush's second term, Pelosi could end up being president for nine and a half years.

[illinoisprogressive]

6. Pelosi would never give it to a DLCer except for Rahm, who she has

a soft spot for.

[Wiley50]

3. Mine Is Short but encompasses Eternity

Step ! Bush Will Do His Surge

Step 2 Bush Will Nuke Iran
Russia and China will nuke US

Step 3 It will take about the rest of the two years for the cockroaches
to eat us and all the crumbs we leave behind

Step 4 Nature will fill the vacuum and bloom eternally

[illinoisprogressive]

5. Ah, but mother nature always gets her way in the end.

[blues90]

13. I tend to agree

This is much the way I see it . It appears others here do not think this will take two years to play out .

I cannot look as far as two years from now . Look at all the horrors that have unfolded during the last two years . We keep getting deeper and deeper into this mess with no real way of stopping them .

[On the Road]

7. 1) Bush Will Keep Troops for Another Two Years

2) The next president, who will be a Democrat, will negotiate with surrounding states for security and secretly with insurgent troops for a truce.

3) Iraq will descend into a state of hateful peace like Lebanon, the West Bank, or Cyprus

4) US troops will leave in 2010.

5) Iraq will be a trouble spot for years, maybe decades, but it will be off the minds of Americans.

[Bucky]

8. Doesn't acknowledging reality make you feel just a little cynical sometimes?

Yes, Iraq will be a hell hole for the next ten years at least. But they will turn their anger on each other more than us for 90% of that time.

[Zan_of_Texas]

9. Ok.

1. The US attempts to provoke Iran by grabbing 5 or 6 members of their consul, located in Iraq (done).

2. Iran is 5-10 years away from having any nuclear weapons (and so what if they did, the only country that has 18,000 nukes and has used them is the U.S.). However, Israel and the US are determined to attack Iran. To "remake the Middle East."

3. The US or Israel arrange for a provoking incident, then blame it on Iran. Then, they use the already assembled ships etc. for an air strike on Iran. Preferably the day before Dick Cheney is called to testify in the Plame case.

4. The Dems crumble, giving George carte blanche to "protect" the U.S.

5. Unfortunately for Bush and his imposter government, Iran has a lot of old friends, and is gaining new ones. Meanwhile, the US has been losing a lot of old friends, and making many new enemies. So, if China and Venezuela help Iran, and most of our allies are sick and tired of fighting a war of choice, things could get very interesting (and awful). China has only to call in the billions owed it by the U.S. to bring the U.S. to its financial knees; no shot need be fired.

6. Fortunately, some enterprising activist finally finds the elusive "Do Over" button. This reverses the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice. A more moderate judge replaces him. That judge votes with the other 4 moderates in Bush v Gore, and sends the November 2000 recount back to Florida. Gore wins the recount, and becomes President. George W. Bush and Karl Rove go into used car sales, where they are quite successful. Arguably, with Gore as president on September 11, 2001, that day is like other days, with no terror incident. We would be fighting global warming today, instead of Iraqis whose main crime is that they are sitting on top of the world's most valuable oil reservoir.

[Fovea]

10. Ok

Step one - We surge and embed with Iraqi Units under a former Baath general.

Step two - The Shia disengage from the strategy when the combined units also target Shia militia members.

Step three - Iraqi command and control breaks down, as units desert and form rival shia-sunni militias. Embedded Americans are the most easily recognized target, and suffer the fate of the nail that sticks up higher than its neighbors.

Step four- in a general rout, American forces abandon the Green Zone for the temporarily safe haven of rusticated bases.

Step five- Israel and US forces invade Iran. Saudi insurgients promise to stabilze the Iraq Shia community as it goes apeshit.

Step six -- we attack Syria with Israel.

Step seven -- because of Saudi cooperation with the US, ally of Israel, the royal family is overthrown by a wahabbist islamic republic. SA turns off the tap.

Step eight -- ** reinstates the draft as part of a declared state of national emergency. Riots and general insurrection brutally supressed at home, as hurricane season looks to overtake 2005.

Step nine -- ** invades the Arabian Islamic Republic. Entire Islamic world switches to Euro for oil trading.
Bush institutes War NeoConservatism, a command economy with a new, non convertable currency.

Step ten -- ooops, Saudi Arabia has the bomb, ** discovers, so does Iran.

[Fovea]

11. K&R

too good to die young.

[Bucky]

12. K&R, hell. I'm bookmarking this bad boy

And it is a very bad thread.

[Buzz Clik]

14. Can't you be more specific?

:sarcasm:

[Bucky]

15. To sum up...

1. I'm predicting a whimper, not a bang, ending. Essentially we declare victory and start leaving about a year from now.

2. IllinoisProgressive predicts a constitutional crises and impeachment over the surge, with Pelosi becoming the next president.

3. Wiley50 predicts a bang, not a wimper, as Russia and China decide to join in the nuking fun

4. Ribofunk predicts no substantive changes until the next president begins a gradual phase out by 2010 and Iraq becomes a big Lebanon

5. Zan of Texas predicts Democrats stay the same old lapdogs and follow Bush's concocted threat into war against Iran, China calls in its debts, and some shit about time travel (with a hat tip to the Omega 13 from Galaxy Quest)

6. Realpolitik predicts an escalated civil war in Iraq, a combined US-Israeli invasion of Persia, a toppled Saudi regime, a general US draft, and the revelation of two closet nuclear powers in the region.

OK, optimists, it's now time to quit boycotting this thread.