I think we'll be in both places forever. We're still in Korea, Germany, Italy, Cuba and Japan after all. Shucks, there are probably still more troops in Germany than Iraq. I bet the casualty rates are comparable too. More american soldiers died in peace under Clinton than at war under Bush.
www.murdoconline.net/archive...564.html

There is no serious political candidate who says otherwise. Iraq will probably continue to get better. Afghanistan will probably continue to get worse. We might invade or bomb another country in time for the election, though it is more likely the Indians or Israelis do so for us. After a while, people will start looking at our fun new colonialism sort of like the weather, which is as it should be.

I talked to a military historian at a New Year's Eve party, and he said the current favorite for the next trouble spot is Egypt.

Here's his reasoning: it has a long history of being a crossroads for armies and geopolitical advantages; there is a history of trouble with religious fanatics (talk to Anwar or Jehan Sadat if you don't believe that); and the government is hanging on by its fingernails. Should the Fundamentalists gain power, the entire political map in the Middle East is in trouble.

A tidbit from today's news:

In a brief confrontation in the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, five armed Iranian fast boats took aggressive actions on Sunday around three United States Navy warships in international waters, according to a Pentagon spokesman, who called the moves “reckless and dangerous.”

The confrontation, which ended uneventfully after about 20 minutes took place as the three American vessels were sailing into the Persian Gulf, according to Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. The American vessels were a destroyer, a frigate and a cruiser.

The Iranian government played down the episode, saying that it ended immediately when the vessels recognized one another. But Mr. Whitman and other officials described a tense confrontation in the strait, a narrow but vital passage through which millions of barrels of oil move each day. Oil prices on world markets spiked briefly on the news, which was first reported by CNN.

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08...litary.html

Let's put all that together: (1) Iran considers itself the natural owner of the Persian Gulf and does not accept our presence there. (2) Iran can increase tensions, and therefore the price of oil, whenever it wants, which is often to its benefit. (3) The Arab sheikhdoms depend on the U.S. for security and we depend on them for oil. Therefore, we can take it for granted that we will have a military presence in this region for a long time.

Whether the U.S. Army should be converted into a permanent army of occupation is a separate question. The present Army chief of staff is strongly opposed, as is most of the military establishment. A portion of U.S. forces can be assigned to Afghanistan, as part of an international coalition, without much damage to readiness, but Iraq is a much larger and more populous country, so if the Army is tasked with occupying Iraq, that would tend to preclude any other major mission.

The sad fact is, we never had enough troops to occupy the entire country, and we are no longer attempting to do so: Kurdistan has been entrusted to the Kurds; it is unlawful even to fly an Iraqi flag there. The deal offered to us by the Sunni sheikhs of western Iraq in 2004, that we should go away and leave them alone, was finally accepted in 2007 and chalked up as a success for the "surge" strategy. However, the authority of the central government in this part of the country remains slight. The Maliki government is similarly weak in southern Iraq, where coalition troops are few, and Iraqi forces are outnumbered by armed Shiite militias.

The bulk of U.S. forces are concentrated around the capital and engaged in propping up the national government, which probably wouldn't last long without them. Domestic U.S. politics will make it impossible to continue this arrangement much beyond January, 2009, which will lead sooner or later to the partition of the country.

Elsewhere, the growing power of China has met scant resistance. Little noticed by Iraq-obsessed strategic thinkers, China has been expanding and modernizing its military, and seeking to intimidate U.S. allies in Asia, which it regards as its historic sphere of influence. The legitimacy of the Chinese government rests of economic prosperity, and economic downturn would tempt the government to defer domestic political issues with the distraction of a foreign military adventure.

To our north, Russia has claimed most of the Arctic as its territory, a region of increasing importance as global warming opens it to oil and mineral exploration. The U.S. cannot allow this claim to stand, particularly because it conflicts with the interests of close U.S. allies (namely Canada, Norway and Denmark) and our own, but we have done little to oppose it.

Some relief may come if Russia and China intensify their competition for the energy resources of Central Asia. This could naturally occur with the rise in oil prices and the growing demand in China. If America's global power continues to decline, each may see the other as a more serious threat, one with which they have more proximate and immediate issues. A conflict between Russia and China would not, however, necessarily work to the benefit of the U.S., since it would certainly lead to a rise in energy prices and further disruptions of international trade.

aztecs say 2012 the world will end.. So I say 2010 the democratic that wins will be pressured into war with china and russia.. But thats after they get cool with the Lakota's and set up shop in the heartland of america maybe they'll start that this year