Howdy Battlefront,
I would also strongly suggest going with Syria 2003, which I think was a fantastic suggestion.
This is handy for a few reasons:
A - its an alternative history, so you don't need to worry so much about plausable.
B - for some reason it just makes me as a gamer feel more comfortable. Maybe it is that Syria is too likely, or something...
I donno, I think that an alternate history instead of a "plausable future" just makes everything better.