What a suprise that it was announced the US has actually been in recession since December LAST year. This war has bankrupted the US. It hasnt helped that the government has been in caretaker mode for the past 6 months either while they chose a new leader.
So I see that there will be a major focus on recruiting local Iraqi security forces, policemen etc and training them - basically the role our troops were doing. I cant see the Iraqi's dealing well with US training methodologies though and by 2010 when the last portable Pizza Hut is removed from the desert and the final copy of ICE T's Cop Killer is ejected from the last APC, the puppet Iraqi democracy will take over border security and homeland security. Whatever outdated military hardware the US cant be arsed taking back home will be handed to the Iraqi's and new stickers slapped over the US markings.
I give this force 6-8 weeks before it folds hopelessly under multiple extremist faction uprisings. Security forces will fall back to the Baghdad area with the countries only port. The rest of the country will fragment and roughly align under two camps, one Sunni and one Shi'a. Iraqi oil production falls to zero.
The Saudis are unable to meet the shortfall in demand and finally come clean announcing that they only have 30 years of easily reached fuel remaining and less than 10 years of jet fuel remaining. Governments around the world buy all of these reserves to fuel military jets. 90% of world airlines go bankrupt.
Obama has been in power for 2 years now and finally the Kyoto replacement has been ratified with major US input to ensure they can achieve specified targets.
China takes advantage of a war weary and economically recovering US and invades Taiwan. The US sends a token force to oversee the 'handover'. China sends its entire fleet of 150 diesel submarines into the South china sea to discourage the US insertion of a carrier group. A US Marine Patrol Aircraft detects and prosecutes a chinese submarine within the carrier screen. China responds by sinking a screening warship.
Obama's military advisors recommend that a ground war will be too costly and unpopular and the use of tactical nuclear weapons is recommended. Unwilling to accept this course of action, the US withdraws; China takes Taiwan without further incident.
The US facade of military strength is weakened and without it, the artificially supported borders of the Middle East break down. Israel is attacked from all sides and from within by Palestinian terrorists. Israel responds with the use of tactical nuclear weapons around the region. Iran and the regions only sole nuclear response device fails on the launchpad.
The middle east is a wasteland, a desert, oil stocks exhausted.
Amoebic life is discovered by a Chinese probe on the planet moon of Titan.
Everything changes.
