First Kirkuk, then Baghdad

John Maynard Keynes once said something to the effect that any reasonably intelligent man could make a fortune in the stock market by reading the newspaper every morning. The premise of this blog is similar; that an ordinarily intelligent person can perceive trends in public affairs which may confound well paid commentators.

It doesn't work 100% of the time, just as Keynes didn't predict the stock market precisely, but the Occam's Razor of analysis with respect to the Middle East is that things will not work out well in the end. Deep-seated pessimism has so far given me a better batting average than Thomas Friedman or Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan developed reservations about Iraq long after the invasion that he supported, blaming his misjudgment on the "surprise" that politicians lie and the military wasn't efficient. Friedman is withholding judgment for six more months for reasons that are unclear.

Unfortunately, this record may hold up with Juan Cole as well. In Cole's blog today (12/29/2005), he reports that the fix may be in in Kirkuk. The Kurd's are putting the Peshmerga in place to assert military control when Iraq dissolves and civil war breaks out. The religious Shiite leaders seem to have largely ceded the region to them in exchange for enough votes to give them control of everything else of importance.

Of course. So why is Cole quibbling about whether civil war has already begun? I'm guessing he is reserving the phrase for a later stage of the conflict, because he wants something identifiable that our continued, albeit reduced, presence can prevent. He believes it is within our capacity, and our moral duty, to forestall the worst.

Not gonna happen. The Sunnis are now participating in every election and it is certainly not because they expect to win. They must have a reason, and it is most likely world opinion, or at least the Arab street. They know there will be fraud in any Iraq election, so by participating and losing, they can wrap themselves in the flag of democracy (considerable irony there). The Iraqi winners aren't going to buy it, but that doesn't matter. As the insurgency escalates, the Sunnis will want a patina of legitimacy.

The US will not be able to intervene against the insurgency with its air power. While the Sunni Arabs may be a 20% minority in Iraq, they are the dominant group in the region and their coreligionists are not going to stand idly by while they are crushed in Iraq.

Making actual predictions is dangerous. Fox picked Michigan by three touchdowns over Nebraska and now they're stuck with it. However, I'm not a public figure and I don't need to worry about the next election, so I'll just observe that all parties have been going through the motions that the US has dictated -- interim government, first unelected and then elected, constitution, national vote -- and they're running out of reasons not to take what they think they deserve. I predict that after a few months to form the government and a few more to go through false motions of renegotiating the constitution, things will get ugly. Six months, tops.

Not quite Afghanistan, which won't happen until after the US pulls its ground forces and that depends on when GW Bush gives up. As Senator Lieberman accurately says, he's our commander-in-chief for three more years and he's a stubborn man.