Predictions

A couple of predictions. None of these predictions are meant to suggest a prediction that Kerry will in fact win; I keep my own counsel on that question. But...

If Kerry wins, and Chalabi joins with Sadr to form an effective mass movement against the political regime which Kerry helps create in Iraq, I predict that certain elements of the current neo-conservative right will side with this Chalabist insurgency over the American-backed regime.

If Kerry wins, and moves to seriously confront the North Korean and Iranian nuclear proliferation problems, he will be hounded at every step by Republicans who suddenly can not abide the thought of muscular diplomacy, threats of preventive war, or this shift of resources away from the all-important struggle against Islamofascism in Iraq.

If Kerry wins, and attempts to put serious resources into the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programs aimed at getting Russian loose nukes under control - arguably the single most important security issue on the planet - he will have to fight for every cent from Republicans in the Senate.

If Kerry wins, and begins to promote serious democratic reform in the Arab world, conservatives will suddenly remember the dangers of allowing democracy in a political arena dominated by Islamists, and will begin to routinely invoke the example of Jimmy Carter's human rights rhetoric and the fall of the Shah of Iran.

If Kerry wins, and Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri are captured shortly thereafter, conservatives will start muttering about a Reagan-style "October Surprise" - i.e. that Kerry's people struck a deal with someone to prevent his capture before the election.

If Kerry wins, and there is a terrorist attack against the US homeland in the first year, conservatives will howl for blood, if not impeachment. There will be no rallying around the president. Conservatives will have no tolerance for "this was a Clinton recession" arguments made, despite what we now know fairly well - that these kinds of terrorist attacks generally take a couple of years of careful planning, which would put their genesis firmly in the lost years of Bush's presidency.

If Kerry wins, and does all the things which he says he will do in foreign policy, then I hope... but sadly don't predict... that we will see a separating out of the partisan hacks from the serious hawkish-minded independent thinkers. My great hope is that the latter will outnumber the former, and that they will be willing to give a Kerry administration the benefit of the doubt and their support if he does things right. And, of course, they are free to join the aardvark in heated criticism if he gets things wrong.

But enough of this for now... with two weeks to go, the future can wait!

Comments

[praktike]

Of course, you're right. But it's nice to dream ...

http://www.needlenose.com/win04/vote.htm

[the aardvark]

Because there seems to be some confusion out there(not you, praktike), let me clarify the point of the post: these are all things that I want to see avoided. I want these predictions to be proven wrong. I want principled hawks to rally behind Kerry and give him a chance to get things done, and to marginalize partisan hacks who just want to bring him down from the start. In other words, don't get insulted by this, oh ye liberal hawks - prove me wrong! I would LOVE that!

[praktike]

Dream on. He wins, and the next day Richard Mellon Scaife will make a $100 million dollar donation to establish the "Boston Project."

[Carleton Wu]

Great. Here I am hoping that the neocons are dumb enough to miss all this stuff, and you go and give it all away! It's like a playbook for Richard Perle... :)

If Kerry catches Osama, or any other high level target, at any point during his first term- the neocons will say that the credit belongs to Bush. Doubly so if it happens in the first year. The two memes (October Surprise v Bush's policies delayed success) might fight it out for a while at townhall and the corner, but the latter will win, bc it appeals to moderates, and is therefore more politically useful.

If the economy tanks, it will be Kerry's fault. Even if it's the day after the election, before he takes office- 'the country braces for almost half-a-decade of tax-and-spend mismanagement'... otoh, if the economy recovers several years into Kerry's presidency, that will be Bush's recovery. Just like Reagan caused the Clinton boom, but not the HW Bush recession.

Wu