Saturday Brain Fart

Now and then I go off on my weird tangent of predicting an inevitable large-scale war breaking out around 2022 or so. I just want to say it's then and not now because conditions have to change first. The conditions chiefly are the zeitgeist of the various contributing countries.

This includes ours, of course, which is changing. There's this weird resurgent conservatism that has evolved away from the Reagan era and turned a little bit wacko. A lot of people are following the wacko-ness, but people are smart enough and they won't follow it forever. Already we see Palin's star has faded, and the GOP can't seem to figure out what sort of campaign to run for 2012. I predict they will fail to choose wisely, and Obama will be re-elected. Obama, meanwhile, has turned out to be another mainstream politician, dressed in the attractive clothes of a new sort of left-liberal, but mainstream all the same. I predict many liberals who were happy with him before will follow along with his centering, and that the Tea Party fad, once it fades, will also have added a rightward momentum to the overall picture. Consequently, in 2016 we will elect someone who appears pretty conservative in some ways by the old standard many of us grew up with, of whichever party I don't know or care.

What else is changing is the overall makeup of the Middle East. Libya and Yemen and Syria are trying to hang in, but by and large there will be a greater democracy in effect. We like to think this is a good thing, and it is, really. But for awhile it will seem more like a curse than a blessing. Remember how when the Gazans got a real vote, they somewhat reactively voted in Hamas. A similar over-reach will occur elsewhere. Don't forget that it was Mubarak's despotism that helped preserve the treaty with Israel. Be aware that an estimated one in five Libyan rebels oppose Gaddafi because of the rumor that he is really Jewish. For good reasons or bad, there is a real and widespread hatred of Israel across the Arab world, and when Arabs have a clearer say in their government, Israel and her allies will be in for a much rockier ride.

This is probably why we aren't talking about the protests in Kuwait so much, or minding terribly when the Saudis send troops in to Bahrain. We really don't want the friendly sheikdoms to fall. Sure, we want Gaddafi out; but one of his sons would possibly have been a better bet for us than whoever the bedlam of democracy brings out a few years hence -- which may be why we appear to be metering our involvement just enough to prevent either side from winning.

Meanwhile Europeans are steadily becoming less immigrant-friendly, and China more paranoid; and Japan is poised to disappear as a powerful leavening force. Yeah, things are changing, and when the emergent makeup of the outer world starts to look truly threatening to an American public that has evolved into something almost unrecognizable to those of us who grew up in the 60s through 80s, that public and its politicians will react in ways that do not encourage peace so much as attempt to prevent defeat, however it's perceived.

No, I'd say for World War Three, we're right on schedule.