Note: This is the third of a five-part series
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

According to the Guardian report, the ISG is circulating its recommendations in a four-point "victory strategy" developed with help from Pentagon officials advising them. It's also getting lots of advice from a number of influential conservative think tanks whose members are part of "working groups" dealing with issues of the military and security, the economy and reconstruction, the political structure, and fine-tuning geostrategy that includes no change in the country's imperial agenda meaning the US military is in Iraq to stay whatever the final ISG report says.

Point One - calls for an initial increase in force size that may be the 20,000 George Bush is calling for to "secure Baghdad" where along with most all of al-Anbar province is where most of the country's violence is.

Point Two - stresses the importance of regional cooperation that will have to include Iran and Syria along with Iraq's other immediate neighbors. It could involve convening an international conference requesting diplomatic, political and financial help - the latter mostly from the Saudis and Kuwaitis.

Jim Baker knows without Iranian and Syrian cooperation, any hope for conflict resolution in Iraq is impossible, and even with it it's doubtful at best. Unspoken in the report and commentary is the one player with all the trump cards that's left out of the high-level consultations - the Iraqi resistance and great majority of Iraqi people who'll settle for nothing less than what the Baker Commission will never propose and George Bush and the neocons will never agree to - a full and unconditional withdrawal, no strings attached with reparations for the damage done that's almost incalculable. That reality is what all the high-level thinkers and planners are up against. Jim Baker surely knows this whatever his final proposal is. In another article on the ISG, this writer characterized Baker's efforts as a job for Superman and then some, and any hope for success is even more than the redoubtable Jim Baker and his high-level insider team are likely to achieve. Making it even harder will be the influence of the powerful Israeli Lobby that wants the US to press on at least with an attack against Iran and surely not engage the Iranians or Syrians in constructive dialogue about Iraq or anything else.

Point Three - focuses on an effort toward reconciliation among the sectarian ethnic and religious groups to win over consensus among them. The report cited the belief that doing this is crucial to convincing neighboring countries that Iraq can again become a fully functioning state, but conflicting reports about this idea are now surfacing days ahead of the ISG report's release.

If these ideas end up being adopted, they'll violate everything the Bush administration did since March, 2003 when the strategy was, and still is, to destroy all the institutions of a modern secular society in the country along with its historical treasures to transform this once modern and prosperous nation into an impotent desert kingdom populated by easily controlled serfs. It will take more than just a major effort, if one is even intended, to put that "Humpty Dumpty" back together again.

Oddly, or maybe in just a momentary case of bad judgment, the Guardian writer said neocon ideas about "imposing" western-style democracy will have to be set aside. It's hard to imagine the writer doesn't understand that's the one thing US imperial strategy never tolerates and was never part of the plan for "the new Iraq." A nation of serfs is not one of democracy, and predatory capitalism and democracy go no better together than fire and water.

The report goes on to say that partitioning Iraq into a tripartite loose federation won't be recommended as it would only lead to a large-scale humanitarian crisis. It's hard to imagine anything worse than the US-created one now on the ground that's out-of-control by any measure.

Point Four - calls for increased resources to be allocated for additional troop deployments and to train and equip an expanded Iraqi army and police. It will also call for efforts to stem corruption that reportedly has involved the theft of billions, most of which has been pilfered by US contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel Corporation (closely tied to the White House) that either did shoddy work they were assigned (other than for US installations) or little or none at all but still pocketed many billions of US taxpayer dollars with nary a wink or nod of disapproval from the Bush administration that effectively gave them and others a license to steal.

This point also will call for improving local government and curtailing the power of religious courts and mentions that Bush may be mesmerized by the "Svengali" or "Rasputin" advice of fellow war-criminal Henry Kissinger who believes winning in Iraq is just a matter of "political will" - just the way it worked for Henry in Vietnam. Bush echoed that advice ironically while visiting the capital of the country's last "Waterloo." When arriving in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, he was asked about comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam and said: "We'll succeed unless we quit. We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while."

It's taking quite a long while as the US has now been at war in Iraq against a guerrilla resistance longer than it took the country to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW II, and those countries had a lot more going for them than car and roadside bombs to fight us. That reality and Bush's remarks show how in denial this man is just like the country's leadership was in the 1960s and 70s believing (in their public statements at least) staying the course would achieve the victory beyond their reach.

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But hold on - Bush's "Svengali" seems to be advising him one way and commenting another in a BBC November 19 interview where away from the US media spotlight he said he now believes military victory in Iraq is no longer possible, the administration's policy failed and is headed for "disastrous consequences (to haunt the world) for many years....we have to redefine the course ("stay" is now "redefine")....I don't think the alternative is between military victory....or total withdrawal," and there should be a regional conference of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Iraq's regional neighbors including Iran to work out a way forward - meaning the Bush administration got us into this mess so will Iraq's regional neighbors and other world powers please help get us out of it. Now which way is it Henry - will the real Henry Kissinger please stand up and show us who the real one is.

He may or may not be helped by a November 30 report in the New York Times, Washington Post, online in Capitol Hill Blue and elsewhere. It cites a well-placed source saying the ISG decided to recommend a major withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in a process of transitioning from a combat to a support role over the next year or so but with no specific timetable recommended. It all depends "on a series of conditions and qualifications" governing the drawdown in language suggesting as much smoke and mirrors backside-covering fudging as any real substantive change of policy.

That's apparently the message from national security advisor Stephen Hadley in a November memo to George Bush saying (the ISG report) "is neither 'cut and run' nor 'stay the course.' " It's also what an unnamed senior Pentagon military officer involved in crafting Iraq policy likely meant when he said: "The question is whether it doesn't look like a timeline to Bush, and does to (Iraq prime minister) al-Maliki." It's another example of what the New York Times calls "a classic Washington compromise" - meaning "now you see a change of policy, and now you don't."

In harsher terms, it's what Newsweek magazine writer Michael Hirsh calls "A Bust in Bakerville" in his November 29 article subtitled "Iraq can no longer be won or lost. Why the study group won't solve anything." But Hirsh spoils his article toward its end by suggesting Iraq is "manageable" and what's needed, instead of consensus, is a "no-nonsense negotiator who can grapple with the reality of the American failure....and seek the most honorable way out (like a) Richard Holbrooke or Henry Kissinger....(or) the best hope for....an adult solution (from Defense Secretary-designate) Robert Gates."

It all seems surreal at this point, but what it comes down to is an attempt to pacify the US public and critics of the war. It's to buy more time for a failed Bush presidency looking more all the time like a house of cards nearing collapse, hoping to save it along with the family's name and reputation. By couching recommendations in terms of possibilities to be decided later depending on conditions in the country, the ISG report apparently will be "much ado about nothing" signaling no real change at all and a faint hope at best to rescue George Bush from the fate he deserves.

There's no hiding from the fact that conditions in Iraq are deplorable and out-of-the-control of the US military looking pathetic against an opponent it can't even see and impossible to subdue. It's not likely to fare much better going forward than it has up to now in the face of a determined resistance and mass Iraqi opposition to an occupation they want to end and will keep fighting against it until it does whether the US military stays in the streets or is hunkered down in its self-contained permanent super-bases.

Still, with a brave face, the report apparently will recommend that US forces redeploy to its key bases inside the country and elsewhere in the region and turn over more responsibility to Iraqi security forces for frontline operations when and if they can handle them. So far they can't and aren't likely to do much better ahead as many recruited into them are from the very resistance forces the US military is fighting and most others joined up for a paycheck with no ideological commitment to the occupying power offered in return for it - not the best set of circumstances for building an effective satrap security force.

The report will also call for convening a regional conference of Iraq's neighbors that will have to include Iran and Syria which the Israeli Lobby is fighting to prevent and so far the Bush administration has preconditions for unacceptable at least to the Iranians.

Further, the report mentions recommendations being considered by the Pentagon Joint Chiefs who seem to be leaning toward a brief increase in force size followed by a partial drawdown and a shift, like the ISG plan, from a combat role to one involving training, advising and backup. The Pentagon option is called "go long" and apparently calls for a large US military presence in Iraq for five to ten years which sounds very much like cover saying there will be no exit strategy just the way it turned out in South Korea still occupied by about 30,000 US forces a half century after the war there ended, and there are no hostilities or threats unless the US provokes one. The Times and Post said the ISG report (said to be about 100 pages) will be released on December 6, at least whatever portion of it the public gets to see.

One other supposedly "classified memorandum" on the war showed up on pages of the New York Times on December 3. It's from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent to the White House on November 6, two days before he was sacked from the job he showed he couldn't handle long ago. On the one hand, it's a rather surprising admission of personal failure and need for a change of course, but on the other it may more of a thinly-veiled, late-in-the-game attempt to burnish an image too tarnished for any public relations makeover at this stage. But you can't blame the guy for trying, and he'll probably get some media-directed help ahead for what little good it may do.

In language trying to convey an image of elder statesman but dripping with mea culpas, Rumsfeld acknowledges "In my view it is time for a major adjustment....Clearly, what US forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough." Of course, they're doing what he ordered them to do, and he, more than anyone else, bears the most responsibility for all that's happened in Iraq since the war began - but you won't hear that in the media-directed attempted makeover.

The former secretary then lays out the policy changes he recommends in a set of attractive "Above the Line Illustrative Options" and less attractive "Below the Line" ones. Some of it sounds much like what the ISG will propose and the "new" direction the Pentagon seems to be leaning to in its planning. But Rumsfeld can't resist suggesting a lot of the blame goes to the Iraqi puppet government that must "pull up (its) socks" and change its "bad behavior." This kind of talk is now coming out of the White House and echoed in the corporate media - a shameless attempt to shift blame for what US forces have done and bear full responsibility for to an installed Iraqi government with no authority and no power to do anything more in the country than clear away the daily carnage on the streets caused by the US presence there. Mr. Rumsfeld and his administration allies planned, directed and lied their way into this mess, and now he and they are trying to lie their way out of it by shifting the blame to the Iraqis that had nothing to do with it with a lot of help from their corporate media allies. It's a classic example of Washington-spin dutifully picked up and echoed in the mainstream hoping to make the victim look like the responsible party.

Read Part 4, "Cheerleading 101" on Friday, December 15th.

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Stephen Lendman [send him email] lives in Chicago, and maintains a blog at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com