2008
Questions
And the Winner Is …
The biggest question for 2008 is the most obvious one: Who will succeed
President Bush?
* * *
Whither Baghdad?
Will conditions in Iraq allow the planned withdrawals of more than 20,000 U.S. troops
who made up the surge? Will Iraqi security forces be able to step in and take
their place? If not, will the level of violence again creep higher? Can the
U.S. find a new way to damp down the sectarian hatred still simmering across
the country? Can it help the Iraqis be more self-sufficient in maintaining the
country's infrastructure, assuming tasks local U.S. military units still
handle? Can the central government overcome widespread distrust among minority
Sunni Arabs and majority Shiites who still consider it too close to the U.S.
Will Sunni tribal forces currently siding with Americans switch allegiance back
to fellow insurgents if conditions change? Will fighting flare up again among
rival Shiite factions? What kind of political compromises can Washington offer
to help ease suspicions on all sides over oil revenue, government
representation and the Baathist Party legacy of the Saddam Hussein era?
Can and will Iran exert what influence it has in Iraq toward reconciliation among Shiites and toward stemming or fueling violence against U.S. forces? Will Iraq serve as a proxy field of contention for Iran with the U.S. over other issues -- including its nuclear program -- or with Shiite Iran's Arab neighbors through rising or diminishing Shiite-Sunni violence? Can the U.S. maintain its tight relationship with Iraqi Kurds despite American support for a Turkish offensive against that country's Kurdish rebels who hide in Iraq? Might the Bush administration again change its definition of victory? What new policies might this White House offer before Mr. Bush's term in office ends that could herald not just an end to the surge but a gradual shrinking of an American deployment that has stretched the U.S. military's power to act elsewhere? Or is U.S. policy on Iraq essentially as it will be until the next presidency?
* * *
After Bhutto
How and when will the vote take place, and what would a popular defeat of his
parliamentary allies mean for Mr. Musharraf? Can the government put off calls
for an international investigation of Ms. Bhutto's death or convince Pakistanis
the nation -- with a judiciary reconstituted by Mr. Musharraf -- can handle the
matter itself? With Mr. Musharraf himself the target of repeated assassination
attempts, and an Army nominally loyal to him but said to harbor remnants of the
pre-9/11 military that fostered the Taliban, and Ms. Bhutto's death looming as
the largest challenge yet to his leadership, how solid is the former general's
hold on Pakistan?
* * *
Immigration
Will we be able to close our borders?
How will we address the current illegal population who are already in
the US?
* * *
More Key Questions
Oil prices and the environmental effects of burning carbon fuels -- namely,
global warming -- are likely to be the most intertwined politico-economic
themes this year. Can the political, business and scientific communities around
the world reach consensus on how to move global industry away from humankind's
biggest energy source in any kind of timely manner? Will the Bush
administration find some means of compromise on the issue with its partner
nations and/or with the growing consensus at home that action needs to be
taken?
How will China tackle the problem? Will China want to present itself as a compromiser on the emission of greenhouse gases as part of its goodwill promotional campaigns ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August? What other accommodations this year might China wish to make for the sake of its image in the fields of human rights, industrial policy or currency controls?
What will the dollar do this year? And oil prices?
Will the US do anything significant on alternate energy?
What will sovereign-wealth funds -- the state-own wealth of China, Persian Gulf countries, Russia and others harnessed to invest around the world -- mean for their owners' political power, or will the overwhelming trend be to minimize SWFs' political connections in order to make them more palatable to the U.S. and Western Europe?
How will the Federal Reserve view the direction of the U.S. economy in the coming weeks, months and year, and what action will it take? How will its missions and means of operating, its goals for inflation and goals for growth, survive the current economic tumult?
Can the big banking giants
revive their credibility following the subprime-mortgage meltdown and resulting
credit crunch? What will government investigations of banking and mortgage
practices turn up? What new regulations will be put in place? What will the
next business scandal be?