2013 Predictions: A Look Back at Politics

Well the fun thing about doing a blog is that I can make predictions and see how they turn out a year later. Well here are the things I predicted back at the end of 2012. Lets see how right I was:

1. There will be another fight over the debt ceiling with the GOP getting blamed for stalling and "holding the country ransom."  They will eventually cave and we will be put back on debt downgrade watch again. This time we are not downgraded.

Yup this happend exactly how I predicted. There was a debt ceiling fight and the GOP was blamed for exactly that "holding the country ransom." They did cave and there was no debt downgrade.



2. Benghazi disappears into the woodwork as we slowly ease out of Afghanistan. Most of our foreign entanglements are finished by the end of the year. America's robust foreign policy on the early 2000s takes a backseat to new actors such as the Turks, the Russians and the Chinese. Europe moves further into the drivers seat of world affairs again.

This one was spot on with Afghanistan a distant footnote in the US. The French are pretty much in the drivers seat when it came to Libya and now in Africa as well. The Russians pretty much ran the show in Syria and stopped us from acting there. The Turns are in turmoil and the Chinese are still throwing their weight around.


3. Bashar Assad's government falls and he flees to Russia. The new Syria emerges out of the rubble and Lebanon returns to an active peace. General tensions ease in the Middle East and a relative calm falls over the region by year-end. Some of the Arab Spring governments become Islamist but it does not affect their relations with Israel. 

This one was wrong. Bashar Assad still stands and Syria is a sucking wound of destruction as the rebels are being ground down with no support from the West. Egypt did become Islamist for a bit but went back secular after a coup d'état.


4. The world will become a somewhat more peaceful place with much less warfare and death on the front page. People start looking inwardly and fixing some of their long running problems. The news becomes focused on solar panels in Africa and micro-transactions in Brazil and less about wars in the Middle East.

Well the world is a bit more peaceful but there are still wars in different parts of the world. Myanmar is opening up to the world at least. There was a bit of terrorism in the Boston Bombing but nothing close to 9/11. Lone gunmen shootings seemed to be a big part of the news but nothing was really done. No solar panels or micro-transactions though.


5. There is less partisan infighting as America tires of the whole "political divide" that has typified Washington for the last few years. No new gun laws are passed through the Congress and Sandy Hook unfortunately becomes just another footnote.

This one was unfortunately wrong with the fever swamp of partisanship being worse than ever throughout the year. Luckily by the end of the year they passed a bi-partisan budget which give me a little hope for the future.