Iraq: "last big push". posted by Richard Seymour

So much for the change of course signalled by the Democrats' election victory. Pentagon officials have 'advised' the Iraq Study Group that a strategy for success must be elaborated including an increase, rather than a drawdown, of troops. 20,000 new troops are to be sent in an effort to - well, do what? Break the insurgency within six months? Do they really think this is what is going to happen?

One curious thing is that this report states that the US will not, under this Pentagon-directed plan, pursue the sectarian partition of Iraq recommended by mainstream liberal intellectuals and politicians like Senator Biden (although not, to his slight credit, Senator Levin), who thinks that the carve-up of Yugoslavia is a model for peace. It is also reported that the State Department has decided against partition. This is being reported as if it hasn't been official US policy to break up Iraq for a couple of years now. Perhaps there is indeed a real change of policy, and this would explain the recent noises about disarming the militias and installing a 'strongman' like Iyad Allawi. But this would involve an even longer term commitment of troops, since it would cause practically every party and interest in Iraq to take up arms against the occupiers.