The debate among capitalist politicians is now centering on the size and length of deployment of such a force.

Incoming Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, made clear in a December 17 interview on ABC’s television program This Week with George Stephanopoulos that he would back the president’s call for more troops. “If it’s for a surge, that is, for two or three months and it’s part of a program to get us out of there… then, sure I’ll go along with it,” he said.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat from New York who is a leading contender for her party’s presidential nomination in the 2008 elections, said she was skeptical about Reid’s proposal. “I am not in favor of doing that unless it’s part of a larger plan,” she said, reported the Associated Press.

Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, has been calling for adding 35,000 troops. In December he led a congressional delegation to meet with U.S. military brass in Iraq.

The discussion in Washington takes place in the midst of intensified bloodletting in Iraq fueled by bourgeois factions vying for a greater share of power. In its quarterly report to Congress released December 18, the Pentagon said attacks on U.S.-led and Iraqi government forces have averaged almost 960 a week between early August and early November, a record high.

Titled “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” the document notes that 54 percent of all attacks occurred in only two of Iraq’s 18 provinces, Baghdad and Anbar. “Although 68 percent of those attacks were directed at coalition forces, Iraqis suffered most of the casualties,” said the American Forces Press Service.

A December 17 document from the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has attracted attention in ruling-class circles. “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq” is authored by AEI military expert Frederick Kagan and retired General Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army.

“Last Monday Bush was, at last, briefed on an actual plan for victory in Iraq, one that is likely to be implemented,” wrote Fred Barnes in the December 25 Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine. The article, which Barnes wrote “for the editors,” is headlined, “’We’re going to win’: The president finally has a plan for victory.”

Bush announced December 20 his intention to increase the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, pointing out that the Iraq war will require “additional sacrifices” in 2007. “We’re not succeeding nearly as fast as I wanted,” he said at a White House news conference.

“The strategy of relying on a political process to eliminate the insurgency has failed,” writes Kagan in a summary of the AEI document. The report calls for 50,000 troops to be sent to Iraq, in addition to the 140,000 U.S. military personnel currently on the ground there.

“We must send more American combat forces into Iraq and especially into Baghdad,” writes Kagan. “A surge of seven Army brigades and Marine regiments to support clear-and-hold operations starting in the Spring of 2007 is necessary, possible, and will be sufficient.” The report projects boosting combat troops inside Baghdad from the current 17,500 to 35,000 by March, and to 42,000 by September.

“The initial mission would be to secure and hold the mixed Baghdad neighborhoods of Shia and Sunni residents where most of the violence occurs,” said the Weekly Standard, describing the plan outlined in the AEI report. “Earlier efforts had cleared many of those sections of the city without holding them. After which, the mass killings resumed. Once neighborhoods are cleared, American and Iraqi troops in this plan would remain behind, living day-to-day among the population.” Similar steps would then be taken to “pacify” the Anbar province, where Sunnis are the majority.  
 
 
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