The numbers begin to tell a story. October opened with a barrage of fatalities against coalition forces. At first it seemed as if it might be an attempt to create a shock that would soon return to the normal level of activity. However, as the days have added up, a total of 71 fatalities have puled up in 18 days – or almost 4 a day. The last time fatalities occurred at this pace, it was the US on the offensive in Fallujah. The other spikes were either based on single large kills – hitting a troop helicopter – or corresponded with smaller American offensives. While the rebellion has before executed counter attacks, this is the first time they have taken what can be called the offensive: a deliberate attempt to bring the war to the occupiers and their enemies. The rebels have declared an Islamic Republic, and google turns up over 1300 stories on this one event.

In a world of dividing lines, this month marks another milestone on the road to perdition: the point where the rebellion in Iraq is capable of mounting a sustained operational offensive, and there are signs that they are taking the strategic offensive – that is targeting specific areas to wrench control from the government and the occupation coalition forces.

The latest batch of deaths have occurred, not in insurgent hot bed Al-Anbar – but around the capital, Baghdad. The progression of an insurgency is to bleed the edges of an occupation or government, forcing the government to take a rigid posture, then once the established power is in this pose, the insurgency then seeks to execute "shatter" attacks – attacks which break a particular strong hold, or make holding it untenable by cutting off supply. This cycle – strike, slash, shatter, take – has been growing in the Sunni insurgency, and it has been mirrored by the growing Shia counter government movement. There are simply places where the US military cannot, or is not allowed by the government, to go. Previously the insurgency was able to strike into the green zone, but it was not able to even attempt to cut Baghdad off from the outside.

Should this happen, the question becomes when, not if, the current government falls. Not necessarily to the Sunnis, but more likely to more hardline Shia forces, which will take a more aggressive – read ethnic cleansing – approach to the Sunni population. There have already been numerous examples of mass killings both by Sunni and Shia militia, and ethnic cleansing of Iraqi Christians has been reported from a variety of sources. It has been said that whatever Clinton did, Bush wanted to do the opposite. Clinton fought an action in Kosovo to end crimes against humanity and ethnic cleasning, Bush has invaded Iraq, and unleashed ethnic cleansing.

Charles Kupchan notes:

The modern Middle East has always been divided against itself. But for the first time the emerging lines of cleavage are sectarian - Shia versus Sunni - threatening to make the region's regimes more unstable, its conflicts more intractable and its nationalism more infused with Islamic fervor.

These outbreaks are not random, but are beginning to assume the character of a territorial war. This could be mistaken, and has been, as a subsiding of the problem – as violence becomes limited to hotspots. Instead it is the reverse – previously the insurgency, while focused in particular areas, did not hold any territory, it was not the de facto state in any area other than a few cities. Instead, what is emerging is a more unified command and control structure, with greater communication and cooperation between the different groups within the Sunni rebellion. A territorially based insurgency suddenly has access to resources and the ability to tax an economy, however badly it is working. The US strategy, to the extent there has been one, has been to deny the sunni access to even quasi state status, knowing that once they achieve it, it becomes exponentially more difficult to defeat an entrenched rebellion.

This month marks the failure of this strategy in gross terms. The US has not prevented the formation of a territorial core of rebellion, it has not established a government capable of exercising fiat, and it is in the process of moving into a bitter end defense of Baghdad. With British committment to hold Basra waning, the time is now to plan for a withdrawal of American forces, otherwise we will be caught in a bear trap between a Shia south and a Sunni north, and will have to engage in an airlift retreat from Baghdad. This will be both dangerous, and difficult. It will also make an orderly withdrawal more difficult, and more protracted. Military planners who are not drawing up these plans now are not doing their jobs, for the time when the civilian authority finally admits the obvious - that we are now, straight up, losing the war rather than treading water.

An rapid airlift withdrawal will be a reenactment of the fall of Saigon - a humiliating and perlious exercise which will be a blow to American prestige for a generation. There are those who will cheer this, however, for those that have any interest in international stability, it is not welcome. It is certainly true that the present executive, and the moral and mental cripples in Congress have badly abused American power - however, desiring the end of this period is not the same as desiring the collapse of the Pax Americana, or the establishment of conditions which lead to a period of greater chaos and disruption.

Iraq is a disaster, however, with just a little bit more incompetence, it could be turned into a catastrophe.