Tomorrow

I had this terrifying vision of the future:

Unrest in the mideast, fomented by the Bushist war in Iraq, leads to a dramatic increase in Islamicist terror events in France and Turkey. Driven by the ensuing chaos, Europeans shift to a more anti-eastern stance, tightening boarders and immigration standards, thereby causing protests among Muslim populations of the world. Further terrorist attacks follow, including dramatic bombings in Paris and Barcelona. Europe and America align together somewhat with Syria as the known enemy. Internal protests in these countries are increasingly handled with force.

An American political situation leads to a staged pullout of American forces from Iraq, eventually leading to civil war and genocide. Ironically, democracy prevails.

In a rational decision following recent history, Iran refuses any international investigation into its nuclear energy and weapons efforts and moves successively to the right politically. Iran invades the decimated Iraq and a new government rapidly emerges that holds power over both lands. The United Nation of Islam is officially unrecognized by the UN and the US, however it quickly finds powerful trading partners in some of the former soviet states and Russia, as well as some developing nations in Africa.

Syria, the UNI, a freshly royalist Saudi Arabia, and a few smaller islamic countries join in a collective under the leadership of a powerful Islamic cleric to protect conservative Islamic culture and further the economic power of member nations. All member countries formally withdraw from the United Nations, leading to a crisis in that organization. The UN forms a new structure consisting of 11 "premier" nations, including the US, Russia, France, Germany, China, Japan and Brazil. These nations can veto UN measures with a majority vote among them, a 2/3 majority of them can essentially control the UN's increasingly powerful military powers.

Increasing polarization in the world leads to strategic plays for Africa. The United States, lead by a powerful Democrat president, gives billions of dollars in food and medical aid to larger countries in that continent, with the requirement that large numbers of the population of "donor" countries join and train as members of the UN "peace-keeping" armed forces. A populist uprising occurs across Africa, islamicist ideas spread among the general populous, creating revolutionary wars against pro-UN governments.

Bird flu erupts in southeast Asia. The general tide of the virus is contained and controlled by an isolation of infected groups, but parallel efforts to create a vaccine unleash an adapting virus which turns out to be much harder to stop.