A prediction

It's been four-plus years since the 9/11 attacks. At the time, I viewed the attacks as "the price of empire," and in the succeeding months and years I interiorly entertained my predictions about the outcome of the resultant "war on terror," including the invasion of Iraq, that Bush initiated. I didn't announce these predictions (except for one prediction--so far wrong, it turns out--about the decline of the dollar against foreign currencies), but each of my imaginings has been on target. So now, I'll articulate a prediction, so you can hold me to it.

I predict that by the end of 2006, Iraq (and likely its neighbors Syria and Iran) will have embroiled the US in such a God-awful mess that VietNam will look like a cakewalk. In the wake of today's elections, Iraq will become fragmented, will begin to look like a "failed state," to the alarm of nearby Arab states. The schism between "insurgents" and "terrorists" in Iraq, already emerging, will widen; antagonism between Shia-dominated nations and Sunni/Wahabbi nations will increase, and the US will try to straddle all of these conflicting forces, leaving our troops targets from a hundred directions.

Those of us who opposed the war are often chided for taking pleasure in seeing US failure in Iraq. Well, to be honest, I do. I want the US public--I want the world--to learn that the Bush version of democracy (you know what I'm talking about) cannot be imposed on the world by force, and should not be because of its illegitimacy. I want the Iraq experience to result in debacle so profound that we don't ever get talked into (lied into) repeating it.

I wish thousands of US soldiers didn't have to die to make this point, and I certainly feel awful about the dead and wounded Iraqis who've been made to pay this price. But, to me, if their suffering teaches the US to become a decent nation, a true leader of a fine, loving world, the price is, if not worth it, at least worth something.