What surprises await us in 1998?

LONDON (JP): Every year brings lots of news, but it also brings some real events. Some are disasters, but real events can also be good news. The odds on the various surprises that may await us in 1998 cannot be calculated precisely, but wouldn't it be nice...

1. ...if Israelis and Palestinians made peace?

The odds on this have just got much better. The coalition government of hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the biggest obstacle to peace, is in deep trouble. "This is a government on a flight to nowhere," said Foreign Minister David Levy, who resigned this week.

Netanyahu has already missed the Dec. 31 budget deadline, and must reconcile his warring coalition partners and pass it by the end of March or call new elections. (However, Levy has threatened to resign six times in the past 18 months...)

2. ...if everybody signed the treaty banning anti-personnel mines, including the U.S., Russia, and China?

President Boris Yeltsin has said that Russia will sign it as soon as it can find the money to pay for destroying all the land- mines laid along its borders.

U.S. President Bill Clinton will sign it if he can find a quiet year when there's not a lot of other controversial defense traffic (like NATO expansion) trying to squeeze through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (prop. Jesse Helms).

China will sign it as soon as it democratizes. (See no. 7).

3. ...if Russia finally started to recover economically?

The Asian financial crisis ended hopes for a Russian recovery this year. "Guilt by association" means that foreign investors are fleeing all the emerging markets, and doubling the interest rate has not saved Russia from the general panic.

Besides, Yeltsin is preparing yet another swerve of policy in order to preserve his personal power. "(Communist) Party slogans have been replaced by macro-economic slogans," he said last month, implicitly condemning Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, the regime's leading economic reformer, as a preliminary to firing him.

4. ...if Africa stopped disappointing everybody, and especially Africans?

Maybe it already has. The fall of Zaire's dictator Mobutu in July was the latest triumph of the 'new breed' leaders who have taken power in Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Rwanda in the past decade. Their strategy is good governance now, and (they promise) democracy later.

Even U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently described Africa's "strong new leaders" as "beacons of hope" -- and even if the current crop of would-be saviors of Africa fail, the principle is now clearly understood. Marxism cannot save Africa. The International Monetary Fund cannot save Africa. Foreign aid cannot save Africa. Only Africans can save Africa.

5. ...if Iran and the United States finally made up?

It could happen, for new Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, elected by an overwhelming majority vote last year, has called for a "thoughtful dialogue" with the "great American people". Reports last week that Senator Tom Lantos was planning to travel to Tehran as a special presidential envoy were not comprehensively denied.

On the other hand, both presidents are hampered by powerful domestic interests that will try to thwart any rapprochement.

Ali Khamenei went on national TV in Iran on Jan. 2 to warn that "some faction...or even the government, has a tendency towards reconciliation with the West or America." Clinton's ayatollahs have media access too, so this one is a long shot.

6. ...if Iraq's Saddam Hussein dropped dead this year?

It would be nice, but it isn't likely. Saddam is in fairly good health, so the natural odds on his dying this year are only one in thirty. He has been responsible for several million other Iraqis suffering early death, imprisonment, and or torture (in a country with a total population of only 20 million), so he also faces some risk of being assassinated, but dozens have tried and dozens have failed.

7. ...if China democratized?

It won't be fast or easy, and it may not succeed at all, but we may start to see movement on this front towards the end of 1988.

There is a deep split between those leaders who believe that the Party could liberalize, exploit the obedient rural vote to win a free election, and hang onto power for a generation, and those who think any relaxation of the totalitarian controls means revolution and disintegration. Nobody was going to rock the boat in the first 18-24 months after Deng Xiao-ping's death last February, but that period expires late this year.

8. ...if some major disease were eradicated?

India conducted a mass immunization program last year to wipe out the last reservoirs of polio. If there are no new polio cases in the world by the end of this year, it is probably extinct.

On the other hand, a virulent new variant of influenza has appeared in Hong Kong, and there are alarming reports of some new kind of hemorrhagic fever in Kenya.

9. ...if peace broke out in Sri Lanka, in Northern Ireland, and in Algeria?

Respectively: a small chance, a rapidly dwindling chance, and no chance at all.

10. ...if Europe united?

It will, at the end of this year. More precisely, about half of Europe's population, living in the 15 members of the European Union, will adopt a common currency next Jan. 1. Not quite the United States of Europe, but you can't run a common currency for long without a single policy on most economic issues. The key step in the evolution of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States of America was the adoption of a common currency.

The good news is that all the old European great powers (except Russia) will be included. The bad news is that all the old European powers will be included, except Russia.