Back in late 2002, when it was beginning to become obvious that George W. Bush was going to send us into an invasion of Iraq, I made some (unpublished) predictions.
- The price of gas would spike, as it always does when there’s turmoil in the Middle East.
- The US would get bogged down in Iraq for years rather than the few months that Bush was predicting.
- The insurgency would not give up, and would even grow stronger with continued US presence in the country.
- The US economy would take a severe hit due to (ongoing) high cost of the war.
- No weapons of mass destruction would be found apart from what Hussein got from Reagan in the 80’s.
- Republicans would lose the White House in 2008 due to the negative consequences of the war.
- A Democrat would be elected President and would eventually get us out of Iraq.
- Conservatives would blame the Democratic President for taking too long to get out of Iraq
- Once the US was gone, conditions in Iraq would become worse than they were under Hussein, and
- Conservatives would blame the Democratic President for getting out of Iraq too soon.
I think I came pretty close on the first eight (though number 6 is something of a false positive, since the sub-prime mortgage crisis did more to turn over the White House than the war did). And I missed a few predictions that I could have made, like the fact that politicians would take advantage of terrorism to start stripping away our civil rights and constitutional liberties. But overall I’d say things are turning out pretty much as I expected, and I’ll be curious to watch for 9 and 10 to come true too.
What do you think?
By the way, remember weapons of mass destruction? The whole reason we got into invading Iraq in the first place? Conservatives don’t. The new story is that Hussein was just a really nasty guy (which he was), and that’s why we invaded and overthrew him. Instead of any number of other equally despicable dictators. Right.
Well, here for future reference is a record of the WMD hysteria as prompted by conservatives and recklessly echoed by band-wagonning Democrats. Just for the record.
Many Iraqis have been saying # 9 since ~2004; and Rick Perry has not only already fulfilled # 10, but exceeded it.
i haven’t seen #8 yet, but that could be just me being oblivious. the remainder can certainly be considered as historical fact. not that you were taking any particular risks with those predictions, no.
my own track record as prognosticator is far less impressive. back in 2008, when i decided to hold my nose for the (more conservative than i liked) Obama, i thought he’d be a one-term president because (1) he’d run a more civil-libertarian government than dubya had, thus enraging conservatives, and (2) the strong measures he’d need to take to set the economy back on track would enrage wall street. i was wrong on both counts, yet he may STILL turn out to be a one-termer on account on pissing off his base too much.
I am not sure about 6 being true. Certainly for a time, and things are not super stable now. But then just like in some eastern European countries, they seemed stable while they lived under a police state, but I imagine all that animosity was seething just underneath the whole time.
Re: 9, It is hard to say. Is people getting killed in conflict worse than living under a police state? I suppose, most would choose to stay alive, which is how police states can continue.
I had my freedom taken away for a short while about 10 years ago, I didn’t do anything wrong it just happened. Even then, since my father is a criminal defense lawyer, I knew I’d get out of those troubles, so I did not despair for my future, making me better off than many. But still that was the worst experience of my life, nothing bad happened, except I had no freedom, and felt like I was constantly watched. After that experience, which only lasted a few days, I came to understand why people will fight and die and even kill to be free. I understood why people say they will never go back to jail and will die first, not because of rape or abuse, but because of the lack of freedom.
So, I can’t really buy into things are “worse” or will be, even if many measures are worse, being free trumps a lot.
I read a statistic that 50% of the Americans polled think “we” should attack Iran militarily if said country develops nuclear weapons.
Scary.
And, what’s really fun is that the Pakistani Taliban and their Afghani counterparts have united in the goal of driving the U.S. out of Afghanistan.
plutosdad:
Are you so sure about that? The Shiite theocracy we established/allowed to be established has certainly nmade Iraq’s centuries old Christian community less safe, secure, and free. University students in Southern Iraq who want to hold hands are certainly less free now that “Morals Police” patrol the public spaces. Sunnis being bombed in their places of worship…how free is that? Freedom to starve as the economy has bascially collapsed…wow. Valuable freedom. How many of the hundreds of thousands displaced, killed, or murdered due to our invasion died because they were “fighting for freedom”? A trivial number, one could argue.
I’m sorry, your argument depends on a rather limited and very vague definition of “freedom” and an unthinking assumption that we invaded Iraq to establish “freedom”, that the political forces striving for control in Iraq today are at all interested in such a thing as vaguely-defined “freedom” and that the conflicts today in Iraq are over such a thing as “freedom”. I am skeptical about all of these points.
and an unthinking assumption that we invaded Iraq to establish “freedom”
Who said that? Not me.
other arguments about the cost ..
Again, I was speaking to point #9.
#9 simply referred to if people are better off after 2003 than before.
I go by things the handful of people I know from iraq tell me, and quotes like this “we have democracy. We can talk freely with no fear. We can demonstrate and vote freely. All these are available, and all were not before 2003” said student Hussain Ali, 20. here. That doesn’t mean things are great, or maybe even good in may respects. We’ve also seen an increase in “moral police” the past 2 years. But #9 did not refer to “are things good now?” but it was a relative point.
I think people vastly underestimate the value of being able to speak freely without worrying someone will report you to secret police and you might end up disappearing.
As a Vietnam veteran, I told friends that Iraq would initially be a cakewalk, but we’d eventually get stuck there for years.