Reyes "wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops," according to Newsweek. "We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq ... We certainly can't leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan," apparently a reference to the presence of "al-Qaeda" and the Taliban, both created by the CIA and Pakistan's ISI.

As the corporate media suffers from acute amnesia, we hear nada about the established fact the Pentagon organized and unleashed many of the militias currently running amok in Iraq.

"Not only are many of these shadowy militias linked to Iraqi politicians, but the Pentagon is arming, training, and funding them for use in counter-insurgency operations," writes A.K. Gupta. "What you're seeing is, I think, really the fruition of U.S. strategy in Iraq," Gupta told Democracy Now last December. The United States "set up these militias. They funded them. They armed them. They trained them. And a lot of this came out in the Pentagon's own reports, Pentagon's generals talking about how great they were over a year ago, how they really took the fight to the resistance. And so, what's been going on is that the U.S. has set these up."

And what is the "U.S. strategy in Iraq"? To foment as much sectarian strife, chaos, murder, and social collapse as possible. In the meantime, the Bush neocons have lambasted the "embattled prime minister," i.e., puppet and fall guy, Nuri al-Maliki for not "disarming the militias, halting sectarian violence, and shouldering more responsibility for the country's security," according to the Guardian last October.

"One of the long-standing goals of such neoconservative intellectuals has been to see the Middle East broken up into smaller ethnic or sectarian mini-states, which would include not only large stateless nationalities like the Kurds, but Maronite Christians, Druze, Arab Shi'ites, and others," writes Stephen Zunes. "Such a policy comes not out of respect for the right of self-determination-indeed, the neocons have been steadfast opponents of the Palestinians' desire for statehood, even alongside a secure Israel-but out of an imperial quest for divide-and-rule. The division of the Middle East has long been seen as a means of countering the threat of pan-Arab nationalism and, more recently, pan-Islamist movements. Given the mosaic of ethnicities and sects in the Middle East, with various groupings having mixed together within both urban and rural settings for many generations, the establishment of such ethnic or sectarian mini-states would almost certainly result in forced population transfers, ethnic cleansing, and other human suffering."

"At the outset of the Occupation, it was clear that the U.S. would rule Iraq by breaking the country into mini states or regions and dividing the Iraqi population on ethnic and sectarian lines," Ghali Hassan wrote in February. "The Occupation-orchestrated violence between Iraqis was meant to provide a pretext for the long-term occupation of Iraq, and direct Iraqis anger away from the brutality and violence of the Occupation."

To cement these divisions within Iraqi society, the U.S. and its allies staged illegitimate and fraudulent elections. The latter were designed to establish sectarianism-not 'democracy'-as well as legitimize the Occupation. Iraqis were promoted and encouraged to vote based on their religious and ethnic affiliations. Both the electoral system and the methods of voter mobilization applied by major players were meant to fan the flames of sectarianism rather than contribute to national unity and liberation. There were no candidates or political parties with political ideologies, just religious and ethnic slates. In addition, the U.S.-drafted Constitution was there to cement and legitimize these various divisions.

Few seem to remember the "Salvador Option," actually proposed by the Pentagon last year. "Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen," Michael Hirsh and John Barry wrote for Newsweek. Or does the corporate media care to recall the fact two Brits, members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, were caught disguised as Arabs with a car full of weapons and explosives (see my British "Pseudo-Gang" Terrorists Exposed in Basra).

For regular readers of this blog, all of this comes as no surprise. It is part and parcel of the ongoing plan, forged decades ago by the Israelis and later adopted by the Israel First neocons, to fragment the Arab and Muslim Middle East into a mosaic of weak and politically and ethnically divided Bantustans. According to the Israeli strategist Oded Yinon, after the Arabs are splintered "into ethnically or religiously unique areas," there will need be "garrisons" established to "prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together," as Zbigniew Brzezinski would have it.

Initially, the Israelis figured they'd be the ones to set-up and man these garrisons, but as their recent experience in Lebanon demonstrated, they are not up to the task. Instead, thanks to the handiwork of the neocons, these garrisons, now known as "enduring camps" in Pentagon parlance, are scattered around Iraq with a massive, billion dollar plus "embassy" in Baghdad that will ultimately coordinate operations across "Haddadland," as the Israelis called southern Lebanon under their brutal occupation, that is before Hezbollah kicked them out.

Thus more troops are required, as Rep. Silvestre Reyes demands, regardless of the conclusions of the Iraq Study Group.

In the months ahead, we should expect the Democrats to follow the script, as authored by the neocons and the Israelis, albeit with possible management style tweaking. More troops will be sent to Iraq and vague assurances of "withdrawal," probably with "honor," as Nixon claimed during a previous war.

In fact, Nixon is the template here, as he promised peace with honor in 1968, although he never offered to end the war in Vietnam, prompting Democrat nominee Hubert H. Humphrey to allege that he must have had some "secret plan." It took seven agonizing years from Nixon's promise to Operation Frequent Wind, when evacuees scrambled to Air America (CIA) helicopters for a mad dash out of the country.