Post-electoral predictions

This blogger has already made a few posts and predictions looking past Tuesday's election, viz.

Post-electoral certainty - October 5th
Post-electoral scenario - II - September 2nd
Post-electoral scenario - I - September 2nd

To these add the following:

• Post-inauguration a President Obama will display a new-found respect for the office of the President of the United States, and will not help (and will almost certainly impede, even while trying to keep this "behind the scenes") any attempts to drag former-President Bush, former-vice president Cheney, and some of their senior aides before panels to hold them to account for some of their actions while in power. This will be to the profound dismay of very many of his supporters...
• To his credit, Senator Obama was against the intervention in Iraq (although he did very little, if anything, to stop it beyond engaging in some rhetoric... the volume of which was in inverse proportion to how 'dangerous' it was from a political standpoint to be against that "war.") Having to be in favor of some war, lest he be portrayed as 'weak on defense,' Obama chose Afghanistan as the "good war." Unfortunately, having used this device, a President Obama is stuck (at least initially) with being required to prosecute his "good war" in Afghanistan! However, escalation will not result in a great success on the military front in 'pacifying' Afghanistan, and he will eventually have to move to a political accommodation.
• In the first year after his inauguration any number of crises might arise (shades of Joe Biden's prognostications...). In response to one the U.S. will have recourse to arms, to the horror of the Europeans and others that believed that the election of a President Obama would turn away from the horrors and reflexive bellicosity (in their eyes) of the Bush years... Being the realist that Obama is, it will probably not be against a country in a position to wreak some measure of revenge or in a position to make this a very costly exercise! Let us now bow our heads, and say a few words in sorrow for the unfortunate, weak, country that will find itself on the receiving end of our tender mercies!

Overall prognosis: an excellent chance for buyers' remorse for very many within the next twelve to eighteen months!