But the threats in 2008 will come from beyond Iraq as the region will start feeling the effects of shifting geopolitical alliances.
Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and Malaou Innocent a foreign policy analyst also at Cato, wrote in the winter 2007-2008 issue of "Survival," the publication of the International Institute of Strategic Studies that "by deposing Saddam Hussein, the United States has radically altered the balance of power in the Persian Gulf."
02 January 2008: Middle East Times
By Claude Salhani
Are we better off today at the start of a new year than we were 365 days ago? Is the world a safer place at the start of 2008 than it was at the beginning of 2007? And how will the planet fare during the remaining 383 days of the Bush administration?
You be the judge:
There are multiple areas of conflict or potential conflict in the world today with several of those conflicted areas having real potential to erupt into full-scale war, civil war, or a combination of both.
Pushing the Iraq war into second place, at least for a few days during the last week of 2007, was the assassination of Pakistan's former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan People's Party, Benazir Bhutto. Her death casts a shadow – and a question mark over plans to hold the elections at all. Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf wants the elections postponed, but the opposition, feeling they would benefit from popular anger at the government in the aftermath of Mrs. Bhutto's death, wants the elections to proceed as planned for Jan. 8.
The situation in Pakistan regardless of whether the elections unfold as planned or are delayed leaves much room for worry. Since the start of the war in Iraq in March 2003, Pakistan has become far more unstable with the pro-al-Qaida Islamists becoming stronger and more daring. Keep your eye on Pakistan in 2008.
Then there is the war in Iraq. The year 2007 has been the deadliest for U.S. troops serving there since the start of the war in March 2003 with 902 American servicemen and women killed. Most of the casualties occurred in the first half of the year, and before the 'surge' of additional U.S. forces. Still, the average casualty toll for U.S. forces serving in Iraq over the last six months of 2007 is 1.8 killed per day, according to data made available by Antiwar.com, a libertarian group whose opposition to war is Randolph Bourne's concept that "War is the health of the state."
The same group estimates the total number of Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the U.S. invasion stands at 1,139,602. The London-based IraqBodyCount.org Web site offers a slightly more conservative count with a low figure of 80,272 and a high of 87,683 casualties. In either case it's a huge number for a country of 27.5 million.
But the threats in 2008 will come from beyond Iraq as the region will start feeling the effects of shifting geopolitical alliances.
Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and Malaou Innocent a foreign policy analyst also at Cato, wrote in the winter 2007-2008 issue of "Survival," the publication of the International Institute of Strategic Studies that "by deposing Saddam Hussein, the United States has radically altered the balance of power in the Persian Gulf."
In re-shuffling the cards the United States has unwillingly dealt Iran a stronger hand. Today, there is little doubt of Iran's rising influence in the Greater Middle East. This much can be seen through the Islamic republic's pull on forces it commands in Iraq, its sway with Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as its position of preference with Hamas in Gaza.
And in between Iran and Pakistan lies Afghanistan, another area of conflict wavering between civil war and continued conflict between the resurging Taliban and U.S.-NATO forces. Afghanistan achieved the sad distinction in 2007 of laying claim as the country with the highest export of opium. Afghanistan now exports 92 percent of the world's opium, according to a report from the United Nations. Heroin and other addicting narcotics are derived from opium.
Yet another area of concern in 2008 will be the border zone between Iraq and Turkey. In recent week the Turkish military has conducted a number of military raids into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas of the PKK, the Kurdish Worker's Party.
Ankara accuses the Kurds of launching attacks against its territory from safe havens in northern Iraq, an area under control of Iraqi Kurds.
And last, but by no means least, as many analysts say this is the root of many conflicts in the Greater Middle East is the unsettled Palestinian-Israeli dispute which U.S. President George W. Bush wants to see resolved before he leaves the White House in 383 days.
