Iraq Year 4, What Will Happen In 2006?

[Yavin4]

My prediction is that violence and death will continue. A new government will take power, but the U.S. will still be calling the shots. A token pullout of troops will come just in time for the mid-term elections, complete with parades down main streets across America, which will be covered live by Faux News.

Towards the end of 2006, the new government of Iraq will be undermined in some way, probably by the U.S., and Chalabi will be installed as permanent Prime Minister with the excuse that this is the only way that we can pull out our troops. Hence, another Saddam will be born.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Look at all the countries, all the indigenous people who have

yearned for interference in their homelands, who have begged for someone to overthrow their too left leaning democratically elected presidents and rulers. Isn't it good that we have accomodated them with CIA support and missiles and stuff, lucky them to be our friends in times of need, our need, not theirs.

[handsignals4theblind]

5. -SECTARIAN division more useful than democracy

We all know how the markets love stability but short of a authortarian president, a sectarian divided Iraq into 3 enclaves with the US influencing and or controlling the KUrdish factions and the SHIA's.

The Issue is OIL- not Human rights----let's get real---ever since world war one the West has stuck it's nose in the middle east- coups, assassanations, etc. Why would that policy change

What Iraqis want is Freedom of interference by the WEST-- mostly the USA who worked beside the BAATH party in the 60's to overthrow nationalists who did not want the oil companies running the show!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Why shouldn't the Iraqis love us for arming Iran during the Iran

Iraq war... I wonder how many Iraqis lost friends and relatives to that "war" and I wonder how many Iraqis lost relatives and friends in the '91 massacre... and I wonder how many Iraqis have lost family and friends during this most recent massacre/torture/sanction/fire bombing event. I wonder if that is why they love us so much.....

[MichiganVote]

2. The Kurds will begin to separate from Iraq

[me b zola]

3. Shits gonna hit the fan in '06

We'll bomb Iran, Iran will counter by attacking in Iraq. US will stay in Iraq, all holy-hell will break out. :(

[BillZBubb]

4. Agree up to the last part.

I don't think Chalabi will be installed. He's damaged goods all the way around. Allawi was a willing stooge in the past, so he's a possibility.

The fault lines for the coming civil war will become more apparent as each faction tries to acquire power. The violence, as you say, will continue and actually increase. The number of US troop deaths will level off, though, as Il pResidente moves them more out of harms way to cut casualties. More Iraqis will die.

No doubt we will see a Potemkin troop withdrawal in time for the elections here.

[Yavin4]

9. Allawi Is A Good Possibility, But Chalabi Has Nine Thousand Lives

I just cannot even begin to imagine him outside of power for long. Also, he has always been the neocon's number one choice.

[bemildred]

7. Nobody knows.

Especially any of the "leaders" in Washington DC.
It's all hang on and pray for divine intervention.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. More of the same

The brilliance of the Iraqi insurgency is located in that simple principle: no big attacks, no spectacular offensives, no great land grab, no transition to conventional warfare. No. That may have been the move for the Vietnamese, but they actually had a conventional army, cover from air attack, and limitless arms supplies from the Soviet Union (when the Chinese weren't blocking the shipments). There will be no Tet in Iraq. But what's going on is far worse - not in numbers of lives, but in its effect on the American psyche. Two a day. The steady accretion of the slowest moving catastrophe in history.

The Vietnamese understood their enemy very well. They understood the American mentality. American exceptionalism. Territory. The memory of those tanks moving across Europe. They understood American epistemology and American ontology: subject and object - you identify the enemy, or the problem, and you fix it. You can't identify the enemy? You're shit outta luck.

I daresay the Iraqis understand the American psyche just as well.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. 1000 dead Americans. 30000 dead Iraqis.

17 dead mules.
16 dead "alliance" members.
5 dead journalists.
And a partridge in a pear tree.