If McCain and Lieberman are not going to take the reality seriously, then it is difficult to take them seriously. Announced in the middle of a media circus today, a collection of assertions, it is difficult to call it "a plan", was released by McCain-Lieberman at the American Enterprise Institute. It is an attempt to create a false option on Iraq. Written by reliably dishonest, incompetent and delusional Fredrick W. Kagan, is an example of how solipsistic the present media debate is that it would be entertained at all.

The nominal point of their plan is to take virtually every deployable combat division in the entire US military, and engage in a Custer-esque throw of the dice on a single Chomp and Stomp operation to pacify Baghdad. This isn't even correct, instead, the plan is an admission that US control over the vital air supply line into Baghdad is deteriorating rapidly, and that US presence in Iraq is, therefore endangered to a degree which limits the viability of the American expeditionary force in Iraq. The plan is really an attempt to preserve the construction of Enduring Presence Bases (EDP) and an admission that this project is in jeopardy.

Their assertion is, effectively, that the surge which was used to pacify Fallujah was a success, this is belied by the fatalities by province which shows that Al-Anbar was, and is still, an area where large numbers of US servicemen are dying and being wounded. More over, the assertion that a few thousand troops will be able to pacify Baghdad without leveling large areas of the city - as was done with Fallujah - is contrary to US experience in Iraq. Finally let us underline that a troop surge is a short term phenomenon, it is based on not rotating troops home that are there currently, which means that the longer it goes on, the more worn the troops stationed in country will become, and the fewer replacements will be available. Any sustained build up - that is an increase in deployed troops, rather than an extension of current tours of duty - will require massive effort to recruit, equip and deploy said troops. With readiness levels at admitted low ebbs - check the most recent emergency defense budget allocation for the offcial story - this would mean that we would not only have to replenish, but dramatically increase levels of production.

In short what the National Security Network is already calling the "McCain escalation plan" is based on a false equivocation of "surge" with build up, a false assertion about the success of the Fallujah campaign, an unrealistic vision - even if we accept Fallujah as a model for the sake of argument - about the level of collateral civilian damage which would be tolerated in Baghdad, and a failed political model of what pacification of Iraq would require. It is difficult to call what they have proposed a realistic starting point for negotiations, and is, instead, something akin to a random posting on The Free Republic about how with just another push we can shock and awe our military inferiors.

It is difficult to provide an analysis of that which does not, in fact, exist. The McCain-Lieberman duo states that we could surge troop levels by 60,000. Given current NATO commitments and US commitments, this number is unrealistic. Only with full NATO participation in Iraq could it be achieved. However, this has been one of the running failures of the Bush policy since the invasion, by taking a "go it alone" stance to Iraq, he virtually assured that there would be no material commitment by NATO towards Iraq. A war based on false statements will often have this result.

The plan rests, in essence, on taking the troops which are currently on reset and sending them, now, to Iraq. This is unrealistic, and is akin to the Japanese mistake of keeping their best pilots deployed during World War II. Over time, the quality of new pilots dropped, since the veteran pilots were not there to train the recruits. Further, veteran pilot effectiveness dropped. This effect has been noticed time after time in military deployments - over extension of forces results in both loss of knowledge and skill base, and the degradation of force effectiveness, the increased incidence of psychological casualties, and the deterioration of morale and discipline. Since the problem in Iraq is one of assertion of fiat, law and normalcy, this pattern is inimical to our political aims, even taking, for the sake of argument, that pacification of Baghdad is the objective.

The troops are not there, they cannot be put there.

The next laughably delusional assertion of the plan which Kagan wrote and which McCain and Lieberman are backing is that there is sufficient teeth in the US military to pacify Baghdad. The proposal they have would virtually abandon the rest of the country, creating the conditions of defacto partition, as local forces take over the control of the country as they have in Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Congo. What they are describing is a last throes of an occupation collapse into the capital, which has been seen in the late stages of civil wars and occupations over the last 200 years. When the established power is struggling to control only the capital, then, as Louis XVI learned, the end is near. And not for the rebellion.

During the invasion we were treated to "thunder runs" of forces racing through Baghdad to prove that the previous regime could no longer defend Baghad. This plan is a bald admission of the converse, that the United States is not in control of Baghdad, and the American backed government is not capable of maintaining control of its capital either. The assertion from McCain-Lieberman's camp is that Baghdad, and only Baghdad, is the problem. This is incorrect, since Baghdad is the operation center it is natural for the insurgency to attack there. It is, as the expression goes, a target rich environment.

Thus the assertion that the other areas of Iraq are "secure" is incorrect, instead, it is only in Baghdad and Al-Anbar where the United States is even attempting to assert control against local centrifugal forces, and in Baghdad where there is a concentration of troops.

The next area of total reality failure in the McCain-Lieberman assertions is the level of US troop enthusiasm for the attempt to enact a major "chomp and stomp" operation in Bagdhad. A year ago, Thomas Ricks was in the camp that there was a possibility of success in Iraq, now he is no longer in this camp, though he is not yet in the camp of vocal critics. However, his defection from the "success is necessary" camp is a clear sign that those on the ground, with extensive networks of contacts understand that the condition of the US expeditionary force in Iraq has reached the point where it is no longer the basis for a possible offensive, or even strategic defensive, solution to the problem.

John McCain called Ricks a liar when Ricks asserted that support among troops in country for a surge and stomp operation was low. However, Ricks is correct, while many US soldiers and marines in Iraq would welcome a chance to "smoke them out" and go on an offensive against the insurgency, the reality is that a larger proportion do not see this as heading to any kind of victory, and they are not clear what the mission is.

In short, the report provided by Kagan is wildly optimistic about the level of teeth that could be deployed, wildly inaccurate about the effectiveness that could be maintained, an open admission that the United States and the United States backed government have lost the rest of Iraq and should now collapse inward, and rests upon a state of forces on the ground that is not backed by an objective assessment, but bald faced lying on the part of McCain, Lieberman, Bush and the others backing it.

Instead, the existence of this proposal indicates that a collapse of the real project in Iraq - the construction of "enduring presence" bases - is closer than previously appearant.

The construction of enduring presence bases in Iraq requires the control of Baghdad and the airport, it is through this channel that the men, equipment and material flow to critical points in the construction of a series of locations which, while labelled "Forward Operating Bases" are, in fact, intended to form the basis of a permanent presence in Iraq. This is the end point of neo-con strategy at the present time: the creation of a new American center of power in the Middle East, which is not dependent on Saudi Arabia, and whose expense requires that the US government be a permanent reactionary military government, with no ability to engage in domestic programs.

The present deterioration of the situation in Baghdad threatens this critical flow of supplies, and, with the south in a more and more hostile stance, and the withdrawal of the British scheduled for the next 18 months - requires that drastic action be taken to accelerate the EPB and to end any dependence on movement from sealift points routed through Basra. This is not a strategy for "victory" in Iraq, but a desperate attempt to protect the supply jugular vein for the EPB.

That this plan is about the supply jugular and not the pacification of Baghdad, is seen from the "proposed deployment" of forces for the city. Sadr City, which is the center of Shia insurgency against government and American control, receives no additional troops, and there is no intended push to pacify them. Instead, the report goes to elaborate lengths to rationalize why Sadr is not confronted. However, since extreme Shia elements are, at this point, responsible for a significant fraction of casualties in Baghdad, as seen from the locations of US fatalities, the failure to confront Sadr or the other extremist elements on the Shia side, shows that this plan is a fraud for its intended purpose.

They are proposing a "house by house" search of this area, which, as noted, does not include any of the centers of opposition, nor any of the concentration points of insurgent bomb assembly - in order to create a secure road channel which is only a few miles long. In effect, they are saying that they need 60K more troops in Iraq, for two years, with extensions of deployments, to protect a few miles of road. If this isn't a clear and present indication of an occupation in grave danger of becoming untenable, then very little short of watching bases be over run will be.

Instead the deployment of forces is almost entirely between the "Green Zone" and Baghdad International Airport, and to protect the supply line between the Green Zone and the Airport. This demonstrates that the purpose of the "surge" is not to pacify Baghdad, as far fetched as that is, but to guard a dwindling channel. That the US is on a strategic defensive that is collapsing can be seen from the pattern of fatalities by week. This shows that previously the US engaged in offensive actions, or the insurgency in short counter actions, which spiked fatalities and casualties. Now while the spikes are lower, the contual wastage is higher. This means that US forces are under continuous pressure, and have ceded the initiative to the insurgency.

Given this reality, this "plan" is, in effect, an admission that US presence in Iraq is, while not exactly on its last legs, but at a point when the ability to pursue the Neo-con vision of replacing Saudi Arabia with Iraq is in danger, and that it would much continuation of the current adverse course to make continued occupation untenable. But this has been the pattern of the entire adventure. The time to be discussing change of course plans in an attempt to salvage Iraq was 2004, not 2006. America engaged in a series of diversions over Kerry's war record and inconsequential purple finger celebrations. Now that the cause is, effectively lost, and we should be planning for a post-American invovlement Iraq, to minimize the damage that withdrawal will cause, Kagan is still hysterically ranting about how a withdrawal would be an unthinkable disaster leading to a "holocaust".

While withdrawal from Iraq is inevitable, the post-American Iraq could be dramatically improved by abandoning any attempts to create EPB and instead focusing what little time we have remaining on restoring water, electricity and other basic services.