Depressing prediction inre: Iraq.

[MadProphetMargin]

Sistani is the only cleric of any standing on our side...he's saying "wait for the elections"...while Sadr is saying "get them (us) out NOW!".

Bush will monkey with the election date, as it is increasingly obvious that the fundamentalists are going to walk all over the moderates with cleats.

Or worse, Bush will try to outlaw the Shia party.

At that point, Sistani issues a fatwa, and the whole place goes COMPLETELY to hell.

Contrary to certain fatheaded "experts", we have months, not decades, to get this right.

[Wright Patman]

1. But with the attitude

of the "I ain't going home in a body bag and neither is the guy next to me" lower-level commanders (who show no compunctions about free-lancing death and destruction), when the Shiites unleash hell, they will get it back in their faces a hundredfold.

What we may be on the verge of witnessing is a holocaust and a genocide on the scale of Cambodia, only this time it will be Americans rather than the Khmer Rouge doing the slaughtering.

[MadProphetMargin]

2. Sure. That is one of many possible bad endings.

Another possibility is this: The fatwa is obeyed by people OUTSIDE of Iraq.

Suddenly, Americans are being grabbed all over the damn place...AND the house of Saud falls to the Wahibbis...say hello, $9/gal at the pump, and GOODBYE, what's left of our economy.