Missing from the discussion over Iraq in the United States is the
growing likelihood that the Bush administration will escalate, not
de-escalate, the war. If they do, their goal will be to employ another
round of "shock and awe" - namely, massive U.S. military air and
ground - in a desperate effort to tip the balance in Iraq in America's
favor in advance of the 2006 elections, writes Robert Dreyfuss.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/04/17/iraq_war_round_two.php

Iraq War, Round Two
By Robert Dreyfuss
TomPaine.com

Monday 17 April 2006

Missing from the discussion over Iraq in the United States is the
growing likelihood that the Bush administration will escalate, not
de-escalate, the war. If they do, their goal will be to employ another
round of "shock and awe" - namely, massive U.S. military air and
ground" - in a desperate effort to tip the balance in Iraq in
America's favor in advance of the 2006 elections. The failed war in
Iraq is overwhelmingly the key factor driving down poll numbers for
the president, vice president and the Republican Party in general.

It's by no means clear that Democrats will capture either or both
houses of Congress in November, but if they do it will open the
floodgates for a never-ending series of partisan investigations by
congressional committees, not only into Iraq but the myriad other
scandals plaguing the administration. That's a terrifying prospect for
the Bush-Cheney team, and one they cannot allow at any cost.

The so-called "doves" in the Bush administration - who sometimes
like to call themselves "realists" - have apparently settled on the
idea of a slow drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq, combined with the
stepped-up effort to cobble together a shaky government of national
unity in Iraq that could take the lead in fighting the Sunni-led
resistance. The idea behind that strategy is to convince American
voters in advance of November, 2006, that Iraq is stabilizing, that
the war is being won and that American troops are coming home. The
fact that American troops will probably be in Iraq for a decade at
least, if not far longer, is an ugly reality that the administration's
doves hope will dawn on Americans after the election.

The same goes for the fact that Iraq is already engulfed in a
civil war that no "national unity" regime can put an end
to-particularly a regime made up of the same gaggle of exile leaders
and warlords who, in succession, led the Iraqi Governing Council in
2003, the interim and transitional governments of 2004-2005 and the
so-called "permanent" government of 2006.

Problem is, the Bush administration's hawks have a different idea,
and there is no reason to think that they are not in control. As in
2003, the hawks are led by Donald Rumsfeld, ***** Cheney and the staffs
of the office of the secretary of defense and the office of the vice
president. And, as in 2003, President George W. Bush - stubborn to the
point of being pig-headed and obsessed with the goal of "winning" the
Global War on Terror - is likely to go along, no matter how strong the
opposition from the realists. In 2003, the war in Iraq was opposed by
virtually the entire professional class at the State Department, the
CIA and the U.S. military, yet Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld launched
their illegal, unilateral war anyway.

Against a backdrop of editorials from the Weekly Standard, the
National Review, The Wall Street Journal and Commentary, along with
predictable emanations from such thinktanks as the American Enterprise
Institute and the Heritage Foundation all calling for the Bush to
resist calls to reverse course in Iraq, there are at least two recent
calls for a sweeping new U.S. offensive in Iraq to complete the
objectives of the invasion of 2003.

The first comes from AEI's Reuel Marc Gerecht, writing in The Wall
Street Journal on April 3. Gerecht, a former CIA officer who in 2003
was among the strongest advocates for the shock-and-awe notion that
force is the only language that Middle Easterners can understand,
suggested in a lengthy opinion piece that U.S. tactics in 2006 must
become far more bloody-minded than they have been so far-including a
sweeping effort to retake the Iraqi capital. Gerecht wrote:

The Bush administration would be wise not to postpone any longer
what it should have already undertaken-securing Baghdad. Pacifying
Baghdad will be politically convulsive and provide horrific film
footage and skyrocketing body counts. But Iraq cannot heal itself so
long as Baghdad remains a deadly place."

If anything, Gerecht understates the mayhem that a U.S. offensive
to re-conquer Baghdad would involve, including house-to-house street
fighting in both Sunni strongholds and in the Shiite slums of eastern
Baghdad controlled now by the gangs of the Shiite cleric Moqtada Al
Sadr.

On April 16, the Times of London elevated Gerecht's April 3
prescription to a major U.S. policy option, in an article entitled:
"U.S. Plots 'New Liberation of Baghdad.'" Said the Times:

The American military is planning a 'second liberation of Baghdad'
to be carried out with the Iraqi army when a new government is
installed. Pacifying the lawless capital is regarded as essential to
establishing the authority of the incoming government and preparing
for a significant withdrawal of American troops. Strategic and
tactical plans are being laid by US commanders in Iraq and at the US
army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Lieutenant-General David
Petraeus. … Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces would take
the lead, supported by American air power, special operations,
intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops.

The Times report rings true. It signifies that Bush and Cheney are
planning one last, all-out effort to crush Iraq's civil war, break all
resistance to U.S. dominance in Baghdad, and impose the peace of the
dead on central Iraq. Initially, it might take more (not less) U.S.
troops, but in recent months the Pentagon has stated officially that a
significant increase in American troops levels in Iraq is not out of
the question if the situation warrants it. That it not to say that
such a U.S. offensive would be successful. The 2006 Second War in Iraq
would not be any easier than the 2003 First War in Iraq. But it does
seem congruent with the Bush administration's dominant notion that
Americans will support the war if and only if they see that the
administration has a clear plan to win it.
+

"It is even probable that the supremacy of nations
may be determined by the possession of available
petroleum and its products." - President Coolidge,
We Fight for Oil, Ludwell Denny - Alfred A Knopf, 1928

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

"Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their
dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens."
- William H. Beveridge, 1944


"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism
by those who have not got it." - G. B. Shaw

Want to know what's really going on in Iraq?
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/wakeup.html

The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roller Empire
The God-Awful Truth about Christian Zionism
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/armageddon.html

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