68. Habu: Man , you didn’t pick a date……

I apologize but I’m going to have to hedge my answer a little on this – there are simply too many variables and uncertainty factors in play. Much will depend upon what happens in the US between now and the next election, and to a lesser extent on what the Europeans do as well.

First, while the Russians and the Chinese are ruthless, implacable enemies, they’re not crazy. If it appears going into the 2010 election that Obama, his regime, his sycophantic media and his puppetmasters have successfully snookered, or simply cowed, the American people into submissive acquiescence to their agenda to remake the country, I believe the Chinese and Russians will be content to stick with a long-term plan of gradually building their strength and influence while watching us continue to self-destruct. It is the logical course of action.

If, however, it appears that the American people, by some miracle, are waking up and are about to purge ourselves of our “enemies domestic”, they may feel compelled to make their moves sooner. In either scenario, though, they will act logically and rationally, based on their own cost/benefit analyses.

The wild card, however, is the Islamists, especially once their acquire deliverable nukes and chem/bio weapons. There are indeed some cold, clear-thinking analytical leaders and strategists among them, e.g. Ayman Zawahiri or A.Q.Khan, plus some of the internal Iranian leadership (not the buffoonish puppet Amahdinejad).

However, once their rabid, martyrdom-loving, cannon-fodder, jihadist minions begin to score some spectacular blows and “victories” against infidel targets it’s going to be increasingly difficult for the rational Islamist leaders to keep control of their own fanatic mobs.

While is is true that both totalitarian Leftism and totalitarian Islamism are equally at home and comfortable with killing millions in order to achieve their goals, at least with the Leftists it’s mostly a matter of coldly calculated and perceived ideological necessity, i.e. “you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs”.

Islam, however, revels in death and killing for its own sake. In their universe, it’s God’s(Allah’s) holy work, by his own commands. At some point, as a resurgent Islamism begins “winning” battles and killing enough of their infidel enemies, the inherent blood-lust which is a conceptually and spiritually integral part of their total being will slip the control of their more rational current handlers. And, to repeat, they’ll have nukes, and chem/bio. Even more ominously than that, though, they’ll have the will, or more precisely, the inescapable compulsion, to use them.

So to get back to your question about the date… /g

My money, and everybody else’s too (whether they believe or not… /grin) is on the Islamist’s abilities and ambitions reaching a “critical mass” and “detonating” somewhere within 12 to 18 months, leading to a cascading series of crises worldwide.

Some of these crises are of course entirely foreseeable, and have been discussed here at length. Some, however, will be complete surprises, especially to the PTB’s who think they’re in charge.

We’re in the realm of Rumsfeld’s “known knowns, known unknowns & unknown unknowns” and are all going to get a brutal reintroduction to the Law of Unintended Consequences. TEOTWAWKI