What’s New for 2007?

Don’t get your hopes up. The Time cover is not a real prediction. Here is a more likely prospect.

As 2007 begins, the US foreign policy continues to lose status in the eyes of the world community. Simply put, nothing in our foreign policy seems to be going well. The main fiasco, the occupation of Iraq seems about to be made an even bigger hole in the sand, as Bush is about to announce a “surge” in troops. Once again, military commanders who disagree with the failed neo-con vision of “victory” in Iraq are pushed aside in favor of those who agree with Bush. So we will be moving more American troops into harm’s way, trying to “win” another nation’s civil war. Other coalition nations were wise enough to see this coming and to bail out and leave the mess to the nation the caused it, the USA. Britain still has a nominal presence, but it is confined to safer and more stable areas in the south.

Bush denies Iraq is in civil war, even as his concept of victory evolves into essentially giving up on the Sunnis and siding with the Shiites. This newest evolution is fraught with problems, embittering the vast numbers of Sunnis throughout the world (aided by the anti-Sunni venom demonstrated at the Hussein hanging), and adding to the power and prestige of the Shiite militias in Iraq. Overarching this all is the fact that the fall of Iraq has elevated Iran to pre-eminence in the region, something the US tried to prevent in the 1980s by encouraging Hussein led Iraq in its war with Iran, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.

For the last two years of the Bush regime, I expect the occupation of Iraq to become an even greater losing proposition, as Bush digs a bigger hole in the sand under the guise of trying to work with Iraqis to exit the hole. I would not be surprised if the number of American forces killed and wounded in Iraq at the time Bush leaves office is double what it is now. The next American President will be left with an even bigger mess than we are now facing.

The new Democratic Congress cannot do that much to stop what Bush does in Iraq. They can complain, hold hearings and investigate. The Senate can disapprove relevant Presidential appointments and the House can put some strings on appropriations, but Bush will do everything, legal and otherwise, to pursue his chosen agenda in Iraq. For two more years at least, it is Vietnam Redux.

Regarding the domestic agenda, there may be some hope. Bush is so consumed with Iraq, and as a lame duck has nothing much to gain by pandering further to the religious right, that he has no realistic hope of accomplishing much legislatively, other than what is always foremost on the Republican agenda, cutting taxes for the rich (or in this case trying to preserve the cuts they already made when they were in full control). Democratic Congressional leadership is in wise and experienced hands, with diverse Democratic wings in considerable agreement on core issues. The Republican ranks are depleted of the top crooks, some of the moderates and a few of the far right, leaving mostly legitimate types who want fiscal responsibility and limited government (at least on domestic programs other than corporate welfare). There is a window of opportunity to get some relatively unexciting but somewhat beneficial bi-partisan legislation enacted into law. The window will be closed by the start of 2008, when the legislative process returns primarily to becoming part of the re-election campaigns.

The current Senate includes one nominal oddball and two real ones. Senator Sanders of Vermont is nominally an Independent but in fact a moderately liberal Democrat. Joe Lieberman says he is a Democrat in Independent clothing, but on foreign policy is actually a neo-con Republican in Democrat clothing. And John McCain is supposedly a maverick Republican of independent mind, but in fact is a conservative Republican who talks independent but ultimately gets in line to get his nose browned.