Ten foreign policy predictions for 2009*
- Mexico: The world’s leading narco state will, unnoticed, dissolve into total chaos destabilising the surrounding region.
- Middle East: February elections in Israel will see Binyamin Netanyahu being voted in while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be voted out in Iranian elections in June.
- Asia: H5N1 will return with a vengeance.
- Bosnia: A growing culture clash between conservative Islam and the country’s avowed secularism will result in an increase in violence in the country.
- Africa: Robert Mugabe will be assassinated.
- UK: There will be no election in 2009.
- Turkey: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will abandon further attempts to join the European Union and instead turn East and focus on regional diplomacy.
- Iraq: Elections will be relatively peaceful in much of the country.
- Somalia: The US or France will be drawn into a short, intense ground war in the South West of the country.
- Afghanistan: In May Britain will increase the number of troops in the country. In October a European deal with the Obama administration will see France, Germany and Italy do the same.
* I will happily blog when these predictions are proven wrong.