What's Going to Happen in 2007

I'm starting a new annual event. I'm going to publish what I expect to happen, and this time next year I'll see how I did.


Major Expectations

1. Congressional investigations of the administration will become the major news story of this year; or rather, it will lead to what will become the major news stories. Some juicy bit of information will lead to a press feeding frenzy. Given this administration’s arrogant and contemptuous disregard for constitutional “checks and balances” – a result of Cheney’s plan to reinvigorate the power of the presidency – investigations of questionable practices will lead to a Constitutional crisis. Either impeachment proceeding will have started or serious discussion of it before the year is out.

The administration will try to cover up, and mistakes will be made. It's all happened before and it's about to begin again.


2. The surge will not work in Iraq. Unexpected events or the insurgency will just escalate their activities to render the surge ineffective. Of course, more Americans will die. More Iraqi will die also, but that was going to happen anyway – that's the point.

The Iraq problem could escalate into a greater Middle Eastern war between Arabs (Sunnis) and Persians (Shiites).

I keep thinking one of the groups in Iraq is going to get enough power then the Americans will be in the way of continued growth. At that point, they will turn violently on the Americans, running a campaign of attack on Americans much greater than has been seen before, trying to rally more Iraqis to their cause. Americans may have to evacuate Iraq.


3. Castro is going to die this year. What happens after that is anybody's guess. Power struggle in Cuba, normalization of diplomatic relations with the U.S., mass migration of Cubans living in the U.S. back to Cuba – all or any of this could happen. It will be an exciting time for Cubans and their American friends.



The really, really long shot prediction

1. Bush will have a nervous breakdown. I just don't think he will be able to handle the coming pressure of investigations of his administration. In his past, whenever he fucked up royally, his dad or his dad's friends came to his rescue, however, Bush has got himself into a situation that not even his father can help him. His dad tried with the Iraqi Study Group, but Bush refuse to use their suggestions. Maybe he is still in denial about his rebellion against his dad.

With no place to run, he will have a breakdown. Cheney will become President.


2. Bush will pull Iran into his war. Remembering how people rallied to side when he decided to invade Iraq, he believes the same would occur when he goes to war against Iran.


Scoring previous predictions

My ability to predict the future is questionable. I thought Saddam had WMD's. I saw the footage of where he had gassed his own people and read he had done the same to an even greater number of Iranians during their war, so I was sure he would at least have poisonous gas. But they found nothing except some very old gas ordinance. Saddam was bluffing and Bush called his bluff. Bush is currently dealing with his winnings.

What was known unknowns. The full implication of Powell's Pottery Barn metaphor is only now becoming known.

However, I was sure the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. One of my first posts was an expression of that very thought. I knew we could overthrow the bastard, but I knew any attempt at nation building was a huge mistake. I didn't know what was going to go wrong but I knew our takeover would not work out and I am being proven right every day.

So, we'll see how these predictions fare and we'll come back here next year and score the results.