Glaivester Predictions for 2006

Having an okay track record with my 2005 predictions, here are my predictions for 2006 (I'll add to these as time goes by).

(1) Killing of U.S. and other coalition troops will be down (< 50 hostile deaths for the entire coalition per month) for January and February, and then will start to climb again in March. Unless major changes in the way the war is fought occur, (see next prediction) there will be >1000 U.S. deaths in Iraq (hostile and non-hostile) by the time 2007 rolls around.

(2) There will be at least one "Lebanon attack" in Iraq this year against the coalition. By "Lebanon attack," I mean that a single attack will kill more than 50 coalition troops, as with the Beirut barracks bombing.

(3) Increasingly we will rely on airpower and on vengeance-minded Kurds and Shia to maintain control in Iraq, with the result that there is an increasing number of unreported Iraqi civilian fatalities. We won't get full reports, but the independent antiwar media will have a lot of ominous partial reports. There is a good chance that the Iraqi civilian death counts will appear to be the same or lower than they are currently, but there will also be more incidents that indicate something is being covered up (e.g. reporters being forced to leave the country, being barred from certain areas, Giuliana Sgrena-type incidents, etc.)

(4) U.S. troop levels will stay >100,000. Non-U.S. coalition troop levels will decrease by a larger percentage than American troop levels do.

(5) There will be mild attacks on Syria, from air bombing inside the Syrian border to ground raids inside the border, but nothing on the level of an invasion and nothing serious enough to produce regime change.

(6) Israel will attack Iran. This will lead to an increase in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, particularly in the previously peaceful Shiite areas. Iran will not fall, however, even though the Israeli attack will lead to a bunch of neoconservatives frothing Michael-Ledeen style about supporting the Iranian people. The U.S. will avoid endorsing or condemning Israel's attack.

(7) The market (i.e. the Dow Jones) will not break its previous record of 11722.98 (01/14/2000), and will close below 11,000 on the last day of the market year (i.e. December 29).

(8) By the end of 2006, gold will be over $650.00 and silver over $10.50.

(9) Fighting inflation will become an issue. We will hear more and more about actions being taken against inflation. And the consumer price index will either start going up, or else the goods used to calculate the index will begin to change in a way that is designed to make inflation appear to be less than it is.

For now, that is all.