An election will be held in Iraq in late January, but continued violence in that country will prevent a broad-based national election in 2005, predicts a University of Alabama foreign policy expert.

"I suspect we will postpone the election — at least the national election," says Dr. Donald Snow, professor of political science at UA. "We'll hold something that looks like an election on Jan. 30, but it will not be the grand, national election that we've been advertising.

"2005 is the year of ‘Iraqification,'" says Snow. "We are going to turn the country over to the fledgling Iraqi police force even though, as in Vietnam, we know it will not work," says the UA political scientist who wrote the recently published "National Security for a New Era: Globalization and Geopolitics" and authored "United States Foreign Policy: Politics Beyond the Water's Edge" (3rd edition).

Look for the United States to adjust the stated goal for Iraq to meet in order to begin significant American troop withdrawal in the coming year. "A free and Democratic Iraq becomes the reasonable chance for a free and democratic Iraq," Snow predicts.

Snow, who has held visiting professorships at the U.S Air Command and Staff College, U.S. Naval War College, U.S. Army War College, and the U.S. Air War College, says the American military will not engage in any further pre-emptive strikes as part of the war on terror.

While some in the presidential administration are likely in favor of military intervention in Iran and elsewhere, Snow says it's not realistic. "We are stretched thin," he says. The degree to which military personnel are stretched will have a more dramatic impact on personnel numbers during 2005, Snow says. "As we continue to lengthen the time of tours, the bleeding in the military is going to become a hemorrhage. The number of people who are not going to re-enlist, particularly in the reserve, will grow."

As for the Middle East, look for Israel to follow through on Ariel Sharon's plan of withdrawing from settlements on the Gaza Strip. "That withdrawal is more symbolic than substantive. They will do it, but it's not going to make a lot of difference," Snow says.

Even with a new leader in Palestine, neither Palestinian nor Israeli leadership can control the extremists within their own country, making any sort of lasting peace between the two in 2005 unrealistic.

"There are people on both sides who do not want a peaceful resolution to the problem," Snow comments.

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