Wednesday, 14 May 2003

Two months ago I stuck out my neck and made ten predictions about how the war would unfold. Let's take a look at my March soothsaying, and see how well I did:

• America's next move. I'd score this prediction as right on the generalities, wrong on the details: Bush didn't read aloud from Resolution 1441, and it was Australian PM John Howard who proposed UNSC reforms (which, so far, have gone nowhere) — but the gist of my prediction was correct: Dubya gave Saddam an ultimatum, and that was the only part of the speech that mattered. Half credit.
• Britain's next move. In hindsight this forecast doesn't look as impressive, but in mid-March the air was buzzing with speculation that Britain might fold its tent and go home, and that Blair might face a rebellion within his party's ranks and be forced out of office. I was betting on Tony to see it through, and he did; and the question of whether Britain can continue to be half-Euro and half-Anglo is still an open debate, as predicted. Full points.
• Russia's next move. I guessed that Vladimir Putin would continue to play France like a violin, allowing Chirac to bear the brunt of the U.S.'s wrath, while his kleptocrat friends maneuvered to get their oil contracts honored by the new Iraq. Full points.
• France's next move. France's proxy defeat on the battlefield left no room for brazenly anti-American U.N. proposals, as I had predicted; perhaps if the war had gone badly for America, Chirac would have floated "peace plans" that put France in the catbird seat and gave America, Britain, and Israel short shrift… but we'll never know, will we? No points.
• Saddam's last move. The fate of Saddam and his WMDs remains a mystery: If Saddam didn't have any battlefield-ready WMDs, then why were his troops running around with gas masks? If he did have WMDs, where are they? Where is Saddam, for that matter? For all we know both he and his anthrax spores (and a billion dollars in hard currency) are tucked away safely in some hideout that he's had twelve years to prepare. My prediction was accurate only in that Saddam didn't make effective use of WMDs on the battlefield, after having his hands tied by the U.N. inspectors and the diplomatic strategy of denying their existence. No points.
• The war itself. This is the part where I do my Prognosticator's Victory Dance, because I called the war's duration and our battlefield strategy on this one: Our tanks raced from the Kuwaiti border to the Baghdad city limits, and the war ended when they arrived. (And, the number of mass graves we're digging up right now suggests that Iraqi civilian deaths are trending downward at last.) Full points.
• North Korea. I predicted they'd start an all-out effort to build the Bomb; if we knew whether I was right or wrong, we'd all be better off. Incomplete.
• Iran. Arguably Iran is approaching a tipping point, and the Iraq war may accelerate that movement slightly—but the timing of my prediction is off here. The mullahs are scrambling to retain power, and even going as far as making accomodating noises toward the Great Satan… but whether the Iranian people will overthrow their tyrant overlords remains to be seen. No points.
• Germany. This one wasn't hard to predict, really: We've been looking for an excuse to pull our troops out of Germany for almost a decade, because there's no longer a mission that requires their presence there. Schröder remains in office for now, but I don't think he's going down next to Bismarck or Brandt in the honor rolls. Full points.
• Al Qaeda. Right on the prediction, wrong on the timing. I've re-assessed Al Qaeda's capabilities based on their actions (or lack thereof) during the Iraq war; I no longer believe they have the ability to mount timely responses to U.S. actions, although clearly they still have the resources to make truck bombs (and, in the nightmare scenario, still have a small R&D team tucked away somewhere). This week's explosions in Riyadh tell us there's no shortage of morons and semtex, but the political impact on anyone but the Saudis is minimal. Half credit.

The net result? Five out of ten, or five out of nine if you throw out the North Korea question. I'm better than a Magic 8-Ball, perhaps, but not quite into Karnak the Magnificent territory.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 10:51 am. comments.