【外交政策12.19】2011十大糟糕预言

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The Worst Predictions for 2011From dictatorships to elections to the rapture, 2011 wasanother banner year for bone-headed prognosticators.
   BY JOSHUA E. KEATING |            DECEMBER 19, 2011      
      

My people love me

"I am telling you thatmy response to your demands and your messages and your requests is mycommitment that I will never go back on. I am determined to fulfill what I havepromised you in all honesty, and I'm determined to execute and carry out what Ihave promised without going back to the past.... Egypt will remain until I deliverand surrender its -- it to others." - Former Egyptian President HosniMubarak, televisedspeech, Feb. 10, 2011.
  
   
               

"Move forward, challenge, pick up your weapons, go to thefight for liberating Libya inch by inch from the traitors and from NATO... Theblood of martyrs is fuel for the battle.... The end of colonialism is near. Theend of the rats (rebels) is near, as they flee." - FormerLibyan Leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, audiobroadcast, Aug. 15, 2011.
"I am not talking hereon behalf of the Tunisians or the Egyptians. I am talking on behalf of theSyrians. It is something we always adopt. We have more difficult circumstancesthan most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why?Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. Thisis the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and thepeople's beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that createsdisturbance." - Bashar al-Assad, interviewwith the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2011.
It wasn't a great year for dictatorial bombast. A day afterhis speech promising to fulfill his term and hand over power only when he wasready, Mubarak stepped down, reportedly under pressure from his own military.Libya's rebels took Tripoli a little over a week after Qaddafi assured the"rats" that their end was near and the leader met his own bloody end on Oct.20. (Qaddafi, at least, did fulfill his promise to dieon Libyan soil rather than flee.) Assad may still be hanging on to power,but after months of protests and with his country on the brink of civil war,his assurances that Syria was insulated from the uprising seen elsewhere in theArab world seem absurdly optimistic now.

Nah. Egypt's fine.

"Our assessment is that the Egyptiangovernment is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needsand interests of the Egyptian people." - U.S.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, news conference, Jan. 25, 2011.
Despite warning just two weeksearlier that the Mideast "region's foundations are sinking intothe sand," Clinton still seemed confident that the Mubarak regime couldget its act together. January 25, as it turns out was the date of the first massive protest in Tahrir Square. And we all know how thatturned out. Stable? Not so much.

Syrian reforms are coming

"[M]y judgment isthat Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimaterelationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity thatcomes with it and the participation that comes with it," - Sen. JohnKerry, speechat the Carnegie Endowment for international Peace, March 16, 2011.
Demonstrations had already beengoing on for weeks when Kerry, who was Congress's point man for engaging theSyrian regime and had met with Assad six times over the past two years, madethis rosy assessment. The United States has repeatedly tightened sanctions on Syria overthe course of this year in response to the regime's brutal crackdowns, andKerry toldForeign Policy'sJosh Rogin in May that Assad is "obviously is not a reformer now."But his vote of confidence in the spirit of governmental reform was a bitmisplaced.

Palin for president

"I'm not much of a gambler, but I'd put a little more moneythat she gets in than if she doesn't. You can only tease so many times in thepolitical process, and I think she is getting to the end of that." - Karl Rove on Sarah Palin, FoxNews Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011.
The "boy genius" and political mastermind of the Bushadministration was off his game this summer when he, along with much of theU.S. media, assumed that Palin's extended publicity tour and frequent visits toIowa were a prelude to a presidential run. The former Alaska governor andreality star announced that she wasn't runningon Oct. 5.

The return of Rudy

"I'mtold by two reliable sources that Rudy Giuliani intends to run for the GOPnomination for president in 2012. He may throw his hat in the ring soon." - WilliamKristol, blogpost for the Weekly Standard, June 8, 2011.
Proven provider Kristol made this list backin 2008 when his crystal ball told him that "BarackObama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary." Hewas similarly off point this year when his reliable sources told him thatAmerica's mayor would attempt to improve on his disastrous 2008 campaign bycommitting "everything to New Hampshire, where he thinks he has a good shot atbeating Romney." The only presidential election where Giuliani has been afactor this year has been Peru's-- and he didn't even back a winner in that one.  

Germany'snuclear U-turn

"I think it's fair to say that our energy supply scheme willbecome the world's most efficient and environmentally friendly.... The agreementwill maintain affordable energy prices both for private consumers andbusinesses. Our aim is to further promote renewables, and we see nuclear andcoal-fired power plants as an indispensible bridge towards this goal. This is arevolution in the energy production sector, no more, no less." - German Chancellor AngelaMerkel on her government's plans to extend the life of Germany's nuclearreactors, speechin Berlin, June 9, 2010.
Merkel defended her controversial plans tocancel a planned phase-out of the country's nuclear plants on the grounds thatit would eventually help Germany become a world leader in clean, renewableenergy. But after this year's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, shereversed her earlier reversal and put in place a plan to completely phase outnuclear power in Germany by 2022. Her justification?That it would make Germany a "trailblazer for a new age ofrenewable energy sources." While it may not be quite clear what the trailahead is on energy, Germany will definitely be blazing it.  

Thomas Edison's golden age

"We are already on the verge of discovering the secret oftransmuting metals, which are all substantially the same in matter, thoughcombined in different proportions. Before long it will be an easy matter toconvert a truck load of iron bars into as many bars of virgin gold. In the magicaldays to come there is no reason why our great liners should not be of solidgold from stem to stern; why we should not ride in golden taxicabs, orsubstituted gold for steel in our drawing room suites. Only steel will be themore durable, and thus the cheaper in the long run."- Thomas Edison on his predictionsfor the year 2011, Miami Metropolis, June 23, 1911.
From electric light to recorded music, we owea lot of the futuristic vision of Edison, but judging by this interview inwhich he imagined life in the year 2011, he evidently wouldn't have made muchof a commodities trader. Or an alchemist. Theprice of gold -- a material still so rare that the world's entire supply in human history would only amount to a60 foot cube -- has increased nearly7 times over the last 50 years. Edison also predicted in the same interviewthat in the future books would be printed on leaves of nickel "so light to hold that thereader can enjoy a small library in a single volume." A proto-Kindleperhaps?

Take arelaxing Libyan vacation

"Why go: To see North Africa's bestclassical ruins and to explore the Sahara, by four-by-four or camel.
Why go now: The recent lifting of visarestrictions against Americans means that a door long shut is open again." -Conde Naste Traveler on Libya, "The 15 BestPlaces to See Right Now," April 2011
Conde Naste Traveler probably thought they were being daring by recommending Libya for"the finest Roman ruins outside Italy." Unfortunately, perhaps a bit toodaring. And ill-timed -- this piece was one of many victims of the tyranny of printpublication scheduling this year. By the time it hit newsstands, NATO hadcommenced airstrikes. (See also: Vogue'sfawningprofile of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad.)

End of the Party

"Whatdo you mean by 'collapse'?
Afterthe collapse there will be a new form of government and the Communist Partywill no longer be in power.  There will, of course, always be a China-butnot one that is communist.
When will China collapse?
Withinthis decade-in other words, by 2011.  - GordonChang, author Q+A for his book, The Coming Collapse of China, 2001."
In 2001, Chang, an author andfrequent TV commentator, scored a bestseller with this book predicting thatonce China joined the World Trade Organization, foreign competition would lead to economic and thenpolitical collapse. Chang thought collapse was possible by 2006 but definite bythe end of 2011.Since 2001, China's economy has grown by at least 8 percentevery year with no serious political threats to Communist party rule. (Thoughthere have been largerthan normal protests in rural areas in 2011.) This year, Chang admittedthat he had been off by a few months but he stillbelieves that the collapse is "very close." To be fair, given all theunexpected news of this year, he still has a couple weeks left to be proven right.

The end is here

"This day, May 21, 2011, is extremely important, as it willalso be the first day of judgement, a time of horrible death and destruction,for all those left behind." - Harold Camping, KPIX radio,May 18, 2011.
"It won't be spiritual on October 21st. The world is going to bedestroyed all together, but it will be very quick." - Harold Camping, radiobroadcast , May 23.
California-based Christian radioevangelist Camping got global coverage this year for his confident and specificpredictions for the rapture on both May 21 -- he defended that one on thegrounds that it had been "an invisible judgment day" -- and Oct. 21.Thankfully, the world's still here and Camping earned himself a place of honoron this list. If we're still here this time next year, it's the Mayans' turn on theworst predictions list of shame.