Prognosticators

Every once in a while, I see somebody make a prediction about the near future that simply sounds like they have a working crystal ball. Today, the Talking Dog came down with a graf which I want recorded someplace, so I may as well put it here. I can't back up a prediction of an uncertain future with facts, but I think the dog is going to have a lot of people eating crow this spring.

What is ironic, of course, is that replacing the orderly Iraq with chaos, from which, the likeliest winner will be a form of Iran-aligned Shiite theocracy (after a predictably brutal all out civil war, which will be in full swing by the spring, as we redeploy after having declared victory and commencing draw down around Ground Hog Day) does us no good-- no good whatsoever. Obviously, the principal threat to lives and well-beings Americans will face will be from the social collapse that will inevitably follow the economic collapse that our "make the tax cuts and unsusutainable deficits permanent" government is about to bring upon us (while those responsible retreat to the comfort of their gated communities and armed chauffeurs, leaving the rest of us to deal...) The real, though in probability terms comparatively small, existential threat from terrorists with bad-shit-weapons comes not from orderly tyrannies like Iraq (or even Iran or North Korea), but from failed-states/terrorist-vacuums like the former (and future) Afghanistan, seemingly large parts of (nuclear armed) Pakistan, and vast pockets of Africa (everywhere from the Sudan to Burundi to Sierra Leone to Congo), or even a place like narcocratic Colombia.

Yes, he could be wrong... but I'm doubting it more each day.