Iraq War Has Dropped Out of Sight.
Is that Victory OR an Ambush Setting Up?

The Iraq war “surge” is starting to show progress. What isn’t clear is whose progress is it. The government of Iraq has stopped even trying to reconcile its various ethnic factions. The U.S. has brought increase troops into neighborhoods, fought hard and taken massive casualties but now things are calmer. Republican Political leaders have declared victory both in Iraq and against anti-war Democrats in Congress and the Presidential campaign.

What is really going on? The winter solstice festivals, celebrating the Victory of the Light-- when the nights can be seen to have stopped getting longer-- are most important to cheer the spirit since although the days are getting longer, all the worse months of winter are still ahead before spring will return.

In Politics everyone usually meets any major event with the reminder that the timing of campaigns can change very quickly. A year before an election folks are barely paying attention let alone frozen into their final positions. In most wars, the war momentum is over and the final victory clearly visible before the major killing and destruction sets in.

So what is happening with the war now? 2007 will have the highest death toll for U.S. troops of the entire war. The violent deaths in Baghdad had been cut down for the last weeks. Everyone knows that the 160,000 U.S. troop surge cannot remain many more months, the military is too close to broken and must bring at least 30,000 troops back to the U.S. soon.

The U.S. military strategy has changed from "simple" Victory over the enemy—whoever that may be-- to achieving useful political objectives for the rest of Bush43 term. Getting Iraq war stories and troop deaths off the front page is one of those objectives. Preparing to bring home some troops for photo ops and campaign rhetoric is another. Building super bases for the long term deployment of U.S. troops by the oil fields is also one.

Will the American people forgive Bush for bungling the invasion and the war? Those who are afraid of further attacks will have to let him off the hook. Those who hate his style will always find this war terrible. Even the Bush administration recognizes the Iraq war was poorly planned and executed. So what will be the final outcome?

Wars end with a just peace that resolves the major issues and allows the general public to get on with their lives. When wars just stop for some reason without that just resolution they flare back up as soon as possible. World War I becoming World War II is the most recent clear example. No one is even trying to work on a just or even reasonable settlement of the issues in this war.

Victory has been declared by Republican Leadership in Congress as part of their campaign strategy for the 2008 election. The open question is does this latest move blow up during the primaries or in the summer when traditionally Iraqi violence surges. Then there is the entire question of the change in Pluto sign for the next Presidential Inauguration.

The deal that has been struck in Iraq with the surge is to flood neighborhoods with troops, fight hard for several months and now offer all factions the opportunity to work with U.S troops for good pay--one of the few surviving job offers in Iraq. The hope is to calm the violence and allow the U.S. troops to retire home from their Iraq war with claims of success.

The New political surge in the Iraq War-- merged to the campaign 2008-- has U.S. troops giving money, training and arms and open opportunities to organize to both Sunni and Shiite militias to work against foreign fighters traveling through Iraq on their way to attack the U.S.

The sectarian hatred and ethnic cleansing continues unabated. All attempts at political reconciliation in the government have been abandoned. The corruption and the incompetence remain unchallenged. Everything is being done solely for the benefit of campaign talking points back home.

The bitter partisan politics and wedge issues that carried Bush43 for so long have hit a wall like the Iraq war itself. There is no ability to adjust to the changes required. Conservatives are folks who have problems dealing with making changes—that is why they are holding on to things the way they remember them.

It is already clear that the damage done by the Iraq war can not be repaired or salvaged. The Republican Party can not hope to gain back their majority in Congress, too many incumbents have given up and will not run in 2008. The war has cast a pall over everything else. Partisans can not surrender or even sue for peace in the name of national unity. They have already declared their opponents fools and traitors and worse than death.

Chemistry offers some general guidance for this stage of the Iraq war. The limiting factor in explosive combustion is time. As an explosive mixture burns its components, it tends to blow up and disperse the ingredients stopping the reaction before it has fully combusted. The issue in explosive development is to hold the mixture together as long as possible to get as much combustion completed before the explosion blows up.

The current strategy of allowing all factions to train, arm and organize their militias for as long as possible in exchange for peace on the streets until the surge troops withdraw is exactly the folly that guarantees the Iraq war erupts into a full blown civil war when the temperatures next summer climb over 120 degrees and the U.S. troops have to return stateside for the campaign promise to bring the boys home in victory.

The "Surge" political policy is almost ideally structured to produce the worst possible outcome in the Iraq war at the worst possible time in the U.S. political campaign calendar. Iraqis will be enjoying several months of renewed hope and general peace under U.S. military assistance.

Then as the summer heat makes life more difficult and electricity sabotage more devastating, the U.S. will be withdrawing its surge troops and putting the Iraqi government and security forces on the line for maintaining civil peace as the factional militias are fully prepared to take on the Iraqi government in detail.

How does this Iraq war turn out OK, just in time for the next big show, election 2008? That is the general expectation and public demands from our T.V. shows? Isn't the Iraq war just another TV reality show? It couldn't be really real, could it?

How do all the patriotic slogans and political posturing work out? There are two ways to resolve things on Planet Earth. One is for general co-operation and universal compromise led by elders whose prime concern is the survival and development of the entire species.

That is the negative feedback mechanism which reacts to any excess by moving to reduce it and get back to an even keel. The other alternative is the positive feedback loop taken to the max. This is the preferred alternative in human society in general.It is easier to let those in charge in full folly have their way and keep going until like lemmings they fall of some distant cliff.

No one else has to be involved, no ugly confrontations and human sexuality is such that there is always a delightful time of postwar boom and bliss replacing the casualties and rebuilding the cities destroyed. It is the universal prosperity that has been enjoyed after the Black Death, World Wars I and II and expected after the Iraq war too.

The reasonable alternative requires unusual timing and leadership which is usually not available. Folly is always an option and the Iraq war has been an epitome of folly from its very earliest conception long before September 11th. Folly in Folly out and the survivors hope to profit from the elbow room created by the Iraq war exercise.

Positive feedback loops are common in biological systems. Rather than resisting what is happening, trying to maintain a steady state, the positive feedback grows every stimulus into a larger result, basically blowing the situation up to a higher level.

The Iraq war is now scheduled to become a raging civil war with spin offs of instability in other Muslim and oil producing countries that would be a classic natural positive feedback loop. This means great speculative opportunity.

First going long gasoline and petroleum futures for the coming instability price spike. Then selling short all the current stable petroleum ownership as war destruction interferes with their ability to develop supply to market. Finally, hopes of the really big speculative profits as the destroyed oil fields need to be rebuilt and redeveloped by new owners.

The opportunities for corruption and vicious war profiteering have never been better. There is no serious military challenge to the U.S. super power, just terrorist annoyances that frighten civilians and raise support for more military power and glory.

The only weak spot is the American voter who may be upset at this one more turn of the same campaign screw. The opportunity to blow all the gaskets, clear the systems out and get rid of everything that has been stuck in the close partisan divide may prove truly attractive.

The Iraq war is either one more example of the same old system or the first example of how everything tried over and over and over again finally delivers lower returns than expected. Either was the result will be increased turmoil in the near term meeting the next Pluto sign change like a fleet of jets plowing into a range of mountains.

No matter how terrible the Iraq war cataclysm turns out to be-- in just a few decades tops the population will be reborn, the destroyed cities will be rebuilt and the horrors of the disaster will be pushed down into the cultural subconscious. It is all a drama with the extra spice that the monsters may jump out of the screen and come attack us as we watch the show.

So, ultimately, yes it is Victory in the Iraq war like the Victory of the Light at Christmas or Hanukkah or the Saturnalia or the Winter Solstice festival. The situation will clear up and the way ahead will open with the inevitable end of the problem. The Middle East is only a terrible problem as we remain dependent upon their petroleum reserves for our economy to survive.

The facts of global warming make it obvious that we will have to go Green. There can not be another century of increased green house gas emissions. China which has been the most polluting nation with the least concern over environmental issues now realizes that they can not survive their upcoming Summer 2008 Olympics without major Green initiatives.

The Iraq war must also end in 2008 and the transition to Pluto in Capricorn with the inauguration of the next President of the U.S. on January 20, 2009 means that the Iraq war will be just a footnote. The army can not remain that stretched and bleeding and the Iraqis will continue to repel occupying armies and each other as they have for a long time.

The choice will be ending the Iraq war in some creative manner that resolves the fundamental issues or its ending by becoming a general Christian Crusader-Muslim terrorist World War with violence in every corner of the globe and the Iraq war front being a small oil fire in a general global conflagration.

Nothing would prompt the immediate end to our dependence upon petroleum quicker or more thoroughly than having available supplies everywhere becomes the subject of terrorist attacks and destruction. Given the choice of going Green NOW or dying very soon in terrible deprivation, we can expect the best efforts and universal co-operation of everyone.

See-- there is a silver lining to this dark cloud of the Iraq war. It will be the Oilmen Bush and Cheney’s final homage to oil and the end to all that they have brought along with them. The naive attempt to make their fantasies real and take arms against their fears will finally come to rest in Hell fire and damnation.

Then the world can settle down to the universal issue of how do we make it possible for each community to live on their own terms within their own local horizon without requiring or allowing massive armies to enforce their will upon anyone.

Utopian dreams today as we face an Iraq war and suicide terrorists. But with a truly cataclysmic war causing massive destruction of the current economic structure-- the survivors would have a real empirical verification of how badly the experiment in modern science as the basis of the global economy turns out.

Perhaps those survivors would be able to take the example of the Japanese who used guns for awhile when they first became available to them to kill so many of their samurai that they regretted the carnage. The Japanese Emperor then decided they were too destructive of their values and their culture and rejected them—at least for awhile.

Nothing lasts forever even the Iraq war or the World peace or World in pieces that will follow. But viewed on the timing scale of centuries and millennia the events impending now may well be the best thing to happen to Western Civilization ever. The Crusader Millennium will be definitively Over the the "Postmodern" will finally be able to find its own name.

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