Sometimes My Ego Just Rages

Much is being made about Senator McCain's recent commment that we might be in Iraq for 100 years.

However, you heard it here first.

I have long taken the position that we would be in Iraq, and the Middle East, for 90 years (i.e. -- twice the length of the Cold War).

I first made the prediction on Election Day, 2004 -- in a post called "The Man Who Would Be King"

I came back to those arguments in a post called "Brokeback Sopranos" on May 3, 2006.

Although I did not talk about 90 years directly in my Labor Day, 2006 post "The Wars", a lot of my reasoning is fleshed out there.

All those posts on linked on the right hand side of the blog.

After that, I began to say the same thing in a slightly more hopeful way --

We can leave the Middle East as soon as the energy crisis is solved.

However, even though we can solve the energy crisis on any day we truly want to, there are days, like today, with the price of oil over $100 a barrel, there is no reason to think that we will actually do so for say, another 90-100 years.