But Moscow was looted and burned, the winter harsh, the army had no supplies and he had to retreat, harassed by ungrateful and unreasonable dead-enders along the way.

Two years later Paris fell.

I don’t think anyone in 1811 predicted this exact sequence of events, though apparently a lot of people thought that invasion wouldn’t be a good idea – for obvious reasons.

But I don’t see how that works. How did you get there, again?

If you “offered 10 POSSIBLE reasons for failure” as POSSIBLE reasons, then no—the 9 that didn’t happen don’t count against you.

And don’t get me wrong; the average hawkish pundit comes out worse—much worse—than the average dovish pundit. But it seems to me that James Fallows prediction (comment 10) ought to count as BETTER than Brent Scowcroft’s in #8, even though they predicted the same outcome.

SamChevre, you make a mistake with disjunctive probability and conditional events.

If you predicted (a) (major urban warfare) and (b), and (a) didn’t happen, then I say that whatever else you got right, your judgment was non-trivially wrong—just as non-trivially wrong as someone who predicted not (a) and not (b).

What if I offered ten possible reasons for failure, and got one right? Would I be 90% wrong and unreliable?

Suppose I argue the plan is a bad idea – success is highly unlikely because it there are too many uncertainties, and if “success” happens, it will cost too much. I reject a priori any argument that the plan can achieve success at a reasonable cost. I then posit ten possible reasons for failure (A thru J). I further argue that I suspect (A) may happen, and if not(A), then that (B) will occur. As events transpire, (A) does not happen, (B) happens, and the plan fails. Am I “wrong”?

Do I become “right” if I add the trivial observation that, because I think success is only possible at an exorbitant cost, I necessarily predict that efforts to cut corners in plan implementation will result in failure, probably in ways I cannot now predict?

The burden of proof is on the advocate of the plan. It is not the opponents of the war who must prove they were right to find fault, it is the supporters who must prove they were right to launch such an ill-advised campaign.

Apart from WMD’s, some of the predictions of very high death tolls in the invasion were made under the assumption that Saddam’s forces might try to turn Baghdad into Stalingrad. It wasn’t assumed that he necessarily would, but if he did, then the death toll would have been massive. Instead most of his forces melted away and instead we have the massive death toll (largely Iraqi, but with tens of thousands of US dead and wounded) in the insurgency phase.

Interestingly, the more an anti-war person thought that Bush was sincere or that the administration was honest, the more wrong they would be – only those who premised that the president is a pompous, swaggering incompetent, his v.p. a thug, and his secretary of defense was suffered from a form of mad cow syndrome – mad vanity syndrome, perhaps – would have had a chance of predicting the course of this war.

Just for the record, since we are on the subject of predictions, I think this prediction is total nonsense, and I think that events over the next ten years will demonstrate that.

I also think that your preconceptions are blinding you to a very obvious fact: that ties related to religion are likely to be stronger and more profound (and last longer) than those based on race (‘pan-arabism’). Nasserism, which was a thoroughly totalitarian and anti-democratic force, was never really going to last, and had little appeal beyond Egypt (don’t confuse the fact that Nasser is generally respected for standing up to the Americans and British with agreement with his political theorising). There are Nasserite political parties in the Middle East but people don’t vote for them because they don’t want Nasserism.

Saudi and Jordan simply couldn’t be more pliant: they are American client states, but insofar as they can, it will be high oil prices that will enable them to do so.

And why should Iran kowtow to the Americans? They have the oil and, increasingly, the Americans don’t. And if the Americans try a boycott or anything silly, then the Chinese are the wave of the future, not the Americans.

Incidentally, why should American oil firms continue to reap profits? Iraqi oil production is falling and will probably continue to fall, as the civil war tears the country apart. This means less and less money for more and more risk; it also pushes the price up, which benefits Iran, Venezuela, Russia…ie American enemies. All of whom are already making their presence felt in the Middle East.

This leads to an attack on Iran, which would be a sign of weakness, not of strength. To quote FPIF ‘The long-term impact of a nuclear strike on Iran is likely to be catastrophic and not only because it would enrage Shiites in Iraq. Local U.S.-backed dictators might find themselves facing unrest as well. If Hezbollah rocketed Israel, Tel Aviv might decide to invade Syria, igniting a full-scale regional war. It is even possible that Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf might fall, ushering in an Islamic fundamentalist regime. In that event, India would almost certainly intervene, which could spark a nuclear war in South Asia. ’

This would push oil prices even higher, and almost certainly mean the end of the American presence in the Middle East.

… we are seeing the war split into two. One is the war against Saddam the Horrific. The other is the war against the post-Saddam guerrilla. The latter has no name, yet; the incipient program is simply, repel the invader. As the invader triumphs, setting up a state run by Rumsfeld’s creepy buddy, Jay Garner (who has a first class ticket to Bushs monster ball, being one of the numerous hawks who have day jobs as Perlish vultures), we will have a new war. In this one, the Iraqi state will be our ally against Iraqi “terrorists”—that is, the people who are firing on American forces and their Iraqi collaborators. In the new war, the goal will be a lot clearer—it will be to repel the occupiers. As the krewe of Iraqi exiles preferred by the Pentagon are installed (over the resistance of other Iraqis) get set up, the traditional lines of the conflict will become clear a client state, an imperialist sponsor, and the usual poisonous symbiosis between them, with the client depending on the sponsor to sustain it at the same time that that dependence renders it illegitimate.”

Not very hard to foresee.

“Similarly, if you thought that the War in Iraq would fail, because the US would lose 50,000 troops taking Baghdad—you may have been right that it would fail, but not in a fashion that makes me trust your judgment next time.”

Your comment actually points to the incoherence of the administration’s narrative going into the invasion. The premise was that Saddam Hussein’s deadly stockpile of chemical and other weapons could deliver a stunning blow to the U.S. This was coupled, with the usual blithe incoherence, with the idea that U.S. troops would cakewalk into Baghdad.

Antiwar people that actually believed Bush might well have predicted the 50.000 casualties. However, since the Bush administration’s case for invading was laughable, I, before the war, thought that one should take Paul Krugman’s line: since the U.S. military spends more in a season than the Iraq GDP, it would be a relatively short conventional war. That would be followed by a long and nasty unconventional war, unless the U.S. quickly shunned occupation and got the hell out of dodge. I didn’t think the latter was likely.

The pro-war arguments at the time, and now, almost have to be at least 50 percent correct, since they always involve affirming mutually inconsistent, and indeed contradictory, conditions. These are perfect arguments for Bush’s base, which seems to consist of people who’ve undergone voluntary lobotomies. Those predicting the cakewalk were able to overlook the lies that formed the premise of the war – good for them! Being a cynical warmonger eager both to express one’s own vanity in other people’s blood and feed an already overfinanced war machine does have its advantages.

Well I read that whole thing and didn’t notice mention of any dead people in it. She could be talking about some little dispute over the decorations for the Senior Prom. Apparently the consequence of being wrong that falls most heavily on her is that people feel entitled to say mean things about her, or to not take her as seriously as she thinks she deserves.

I couldn’t have said it better. “Hack” is far too gentle a term for this.

Maybe they like Iran more, but there’s hardly any doubt that in the end of the day the US - not Iran – will build permanent military bases all over the place and US businesses will reap oil profits, even if they have to build 10-meter-high walls around the oil fields and pipe lines.

And, like I said, perhaps the most important result is general unrest in the region, sectarian tension and clashes; every group will be trying to please the Americans to get some advantage. Iran is simply one of these groups; so what if it’s somewhat stronger now. That’ll just make Saudi and Jordan (and perhaps even Syria) more obedient. It’s a simple game: as long as they keep fighting among each other you can’t lose.

Nasserism is the greatest danger to US imperial interests there, not Iran; and Nasserism is completely gone now.