Will Obama's war strategy produce a peace dividend?

by 158 | December 21, 2008 at 02:23 pm

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This is very unlikely to play out as planned.

Iraq could get worse. Even if 20000 more troops

aresent to Afghanistan it may not help as Canada

and other nations are withdrawing their troops.

There could be protests against "Obama's wars"

by 2012.

When The father of President George W. Bush was in the White House, the end of the cold war in the early 1990s gave him a "peace dividend" – a drop in military spending that opened the door to fund more constructive federal programs.

President-elect Obama probably hopes for the same advantage should he manage to wind down the war in Iraq as promised during the election.

The savings are potentially substantial. A back-of-the-envelope estimate earlier this month by Lawrence Korb and other experts at the Center for American Progress in Washington calculates a total savings of $370 billion through 2013 if operations in Iraq are shrunk dramatically.