One more truth about Mr Bu$h’s Iraq qWagmire that hasn’t really penetrated America’s conscious – yet:

US troops in Iraq are Tehran's 'hostages'

WASHINGTON - For many months, the administration of US George W Bush has been complaining that Iranian meddling in Iraq is a threat to the country's stability and to US troops. The irony of this publicity campaign over Tehran's alleged bid to undermine the occupation is that Iran may well be the main factor holding up a showdown between militant Shi'ites and US forces.

The underlying reality in Iraq, which the Bush administration does not appear to grasp fully, is that the United States is now dependent on the sufferance of Iran and its Iraqi Shi'ite political-military allies to continue the occupation.

Three and a half years after the occupation began, the US military is no longer the real power in Iraq. As the chief of intelligence for the US Marine Corps revealed in a recent report, US troops have been unable to shake the hold that Sunni insurgents have on the vast western province of al-Anbar.

The fact is that our “golden hour” as doctors term that small window to save a trauma victim’s life, passed right about the time we watched Iraqis plundering everything except the Oil Ministry. While the US troops protected those oh-so-precious documents concerning the Iraqi oil which was Mr Cheney’s major concern, the Iraqis overthrew the restraint imposed by 30 years of Saddam Hussein’s rigidly enforced peace, law and order, and sectarian community.

[T]he main threat to the occupation comes not from the Sunni insurgents but from the militant Iraqi Shi'ite forces aligned with Iran, led by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. The armed Shi'ite militias are now powerful enough to make it impossible for the US occupation to continue.

Gone are the days when the US military could be so cavalier about Muqtada's forces that it deliberately provoked a major confrontation with him in Najaf in April 2004. That was when he was believed to have 10,000 poorly trained troops.

Since then, US officials have avoided giving any estimate of the Mehdi Army's strength. But according to a report published last month by London's Chatham House, which undoubtedly reflected the views of British intelligence in Iraq, the Mehdi Army may now be "several hundred thousand strong". Even if that estimate vastly overstates his troop strength, it reflects the sense that Muqtada has the strongest political-military force in the country - because of the loyalty that so many Shi'ites have to him.

Sadr’s loyalty is to Shia first, and association with the Iranian co-religionists second. He has no sense of loyalty at all to “Iraq” a country cobbled together by the British after WWI. And having viewed the last three years it’s certain he has nothing but contempt for the US and its various puppet governments. He’s just waiting for the opportune moment to turn his army loose and eject the infidel Americans and British from the country.

When Mr Bu$h starts bombing Iran, whether from his Messianic delusion or from the desperate idea of distracting American voters from the tremendous damage he has done to three countries, Sadr will probably make his move. American troops, tied to Kuwait and the US by a tenuous road convoy system, will be most vulnerable then. Direct attacks on troops won’t even be necessary. All he has to do is close down the roads. An Air Force involved in bombing Iran in a campaign that will take days, if not weeks, will have precious little resources available for tactical support of the convoys. We’ve seen very little use of anti-air missiles in Iraq so for. That might change, since it is believed the Iraqis have perhaps several thousand.

Patrick Lang, former head of human-intelligence collection and Middle East intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, explained why in an important analysis in the Christian Science Monitor of July 21: US troops must be supplied by convoys of trucks that go across hundreds of kilometers of roads through this Shi'ite heartland, and the Mehdi Army and its allies in the south could turn those supply routes into a "shooting gallery".

Lang noted that the supply trucks are driven by South Asian or Turkish civilians who would immediately quit. And even if the US military used its own troops to protect the routes, they would be vulnerable to ambushes. "A long, linear target such as a convoy of trucks is very hard to defend against irregulars operating in and around their own towns," Lang wrote.

It would not require a complete cutoff of supplies to make the US position untenable. A significant reduction in those supplies would begin a "downward spiral", according to Lang.

We briefly discussed the good case realities of a retreat here. And we discussed the bad case scenario, which seems more and more likely, here.

It’s not something Americans can think about dispassionately or logically because as a nation we’re too propagandized about our exceptionalism. There would have to immediately be someone to “blame” even as the troops made their harrowing drive south, beset by IEDs, and sniping attacks with AKs and RPGs. That someone would be you and us, and of course, the Clenis™.

Chickens. Roost. Good Luck to all of us, because it could get very ugly.