The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle

Commentary on the Flux of Events

Here's a possible scenario for the period ahead:

The war to disarm Iraq proves to be less than a cakewalk. Iraq retaliates by dosing US soldiers with a far-advanced version of the bio-agent that caused Gulf War Syndrome. Thousands of US troops die or are permanently disabled. Saddam, as expected, torches his oil wells, pipelines, and port facilities. Jihad-o-rama is declared by Islamic radicals worldwide. Major terrorist acts occur in England, the US and Israel. Israel does not nuke Iraq because the terror act against it is claimed by al Qaeda. The Saud family is overthrown in Arabia. Oil imports to the US and UK are cut off by the new regime (China retained as primary market). The US attempts to intervene in Arabia. Street fighting in Riyadh makes Mogadishu look like Sunday in the Park with George.
Back home: the price of oil shoots up and supplies become spotty. Motorists, far more numerous than in 1973, wait angrily in gas lines. The hypertrophied suburbs in places like Dallas, Phoenix, Atlanta, Chicago, Orlando, Long Island, New Jersey, and all over California, become deeply dysfunctional overnight. Citizens can't get to their jobs. Mommies can't deliver offspring to school or go fetch groceries at the SuperMart. Big Box corporations can't move their merchandise on the vaunted "warehouse on wheels," because of the gasoline shortage.

North Korea attempts to take advantage of the chaos by rushing its nuke program. The US takes out their production reactor and as many artillery and missile batteries as possible along the border, but North Korea still manages to trash Seoul while it sends 500,000 soldiers across the DMZ. The US then turns North Korea into an ashtray. The stranded North Korean army has no country to return to. China looks on with shock and opprobrium but does not act to intervene. (V. Putin applauds in the privacy of his Kremlin apartment.)

The Iraq campaign is concluded at a much greater cost in lives than anticipated. The attempt to "rebuild" the infrastructure -- especially the oil production infrastructure -- is impeded by persistent guerrilla actions carried out by Jihadistas. International oil companies are unable to bring Iraq's considerable reserves "on-line," at least not enough to compensate for the loss of Arabian oil (aggravated by shortages from Venezuela, as well as other Islamic oil nations sympathizing with Arabia).

Back home, the "consumer" economy begins to fall to pieces. A massive withdrawal of foreign investment that has been propping up US consumer credit spending, sends the dollar into free fall. The house-buying (and building) jamboree comes to an abrupt end as America finds itself stuck up a suburban cul-de-sac in a cement SUV without a fill-up. WalMart greeters find they suddenly have the loneliest job in the world -- that is, those who are able to get to their jobs.

As time goes on, these other events come into play:

It becomes evident that the US Mexican border is an utterly porous membrane. The surging Latino population in the Southwest defies the politically correct expectations of government multiculturalists and begins pressing irredentist reverse manifest destiny claims for territory. Meanwhile the Mexican economy collapses and political anarchy sends millions more to the perceived greater safety of El Norte. States begin to demand that the US military take serious steps to control the border, but an over-extended US Army is slow to comply, leaving the federal government irrelevent in this part of the country. California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas are on their own. Defense of the border becomes local.

By now, tanking mutual funds and a collapsing dollar leave yuppie Baby Boomers facing a dog-food caliber future. The middle class becomes the formerly middle class. Shipping lanes in the Pacific have closed due to hostilities around Korea. The transient circumstances once known as the global economy have now changed. An industrially hollowed-out US is left to its own limited devices.

The war in Iraq is declared "a victory."