"We'll succeed unless we quit"

President Bush is quoted by Will Weissert, Associated Press writer, in an article published today as saying, "We'll succeed unless we quit... [Iraq's Shiite] Maliki government is going to make it unless the coalition leaves before they have a chance to make it."

I am beginning to think it will not be President Bush who will be the one to announce that the coalition forces are leaving Iraq. The Jeremiah prophecy has someone prominent in the coalition saying, "We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven..." (Jer. 51:9). That is just too poetic for Bush to speak. Unless he has someone write that speech for him.

Here is what I imagine Bush would say: "Well, we broke her, alrighty, and then we tried to fix'er. But we found out she just couldn't be fixed. Didn't wanna be fixed. So we have no choice but to abandon her to her own pickle."

I really hope, if this event happens in the next year, that it is someone like Blair who makes the announcement; it would be so much more eloquent a speech. Something like, "So swiftly had Babylon fallen and been defeated; and yet we mourned for her. So we brought healing balm for her pain, that perhaps she might be healed. We applied this healing to Babylon, but she was not healed. And so we must finally leave her to herself. Let us each return to his own country."

Now that's a speech. Not, "We'll succeed unless we quit."

Here then is a list of the near term sequential next events of Jeremiah's prophecy against Babylon, if the current conflict is indeed its fulfullment:

• Saddam executed
• His Sunni supporters burn the cities because of the execution
• The coalition becomes tired of the occupation because of the damaged infrastructure
• A prominent leader of the coalition announces all the coalition forces are leaving Iraq because reconstruction has failed
• The coalition forces turn all control over to the Shiite-led government and leave
• The Kurds take control of the Kirkuk oil fields and announce Kurdistan independence from Iraq
• The Turkish Kurds loyal to the PKK are welcomed to the Kurdistan alliance
• The Shiite-led Iraqi government declares war on Kurdistan with encouragement from both Turkey and Iran
• The battle lines are drawn between Iraqi forces and Kurdish forces
• The Kurds decisively defeat the Iraqi army and take control of the northern Iraqi oil fields
• The Euphrates river catastrophically floods and wipes out all the major cities of Iraq, while destroying the canal system
• The river water system is so damaged that the rivers in Iraq's alluvial plain dry up completely and the desert claims the plain
• The nation of Iraq, with all its cities destroyed by fire, flood and drought, becomes virtually uninhabited and uninhabitable, except for jackals

When that all happens, we will know that Jeremiah's prophecy of judgment against Babylon has finally been completely fulfilled.

Next up: Saddam's execution. Then the cities burn. Then the coalition leaves. Then....