A major change in Iraq strategy? Read on.....

The rapidly shifting situation in Iraq.

American and Iraqi officials have set a date for giving Iraq’s forces responsibility for security across the country.

Under a plan to be presented to the UN Security Council next month, the Iraqi Government would assume authority from coalition troops by the end of next year.

Only hours after Donald Rumsfeld was replaced as US Defence Secretary, American, British and Iraqi officials spoke openly about accelerating the handover process.

Reading down this article, this "handover" is not as absolute as it sounds here. Security will be handed over to the ISF in 18 provinces, "apart from the most violent," but still, this is something. It sets a hard target date that must be negotiated around.

The Iraqi government has been clamoring for this sort of control over their forces, now they're using the extension of the UN mandate to get it.

I need to read more stories before I'm sure, but, as Tom DeFrank writes, it seems that the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis has been finally broken with President Bush reaching out to the Bush I realists.

Putting these two stories together with the emergence of probable new Sec. Def. Gates (with James Baker in the background,) I think we are seeing a personnel transition to set up for a major strategic change to the ISG's "Stability First" option.

Most likely, that would mean the construction of Maliki as a "strongman," and, Gates, with his Iran Contra background, has the portfolio and experience to pull this off.

Some US troops may start heading home, and we may have avoided the geopolitical disaster that would be partition, however, Iraq will finally fall into full scale civil war and whatever democracy there is will disappear into some degree of Shia dictatorship.

Later: In an article citing the Shia/Sadr Health Minister estimating 150,000 dead civilians,

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who also has close ties to al-Sadr, told Bush in a video conference last month that he would make renewal of the U.N. mandate under which the U.S. keeps forces in Iraq conditional on a rapid handover of power.

Al-Maliki also said at the time that U.S. forces should clear out of Iraq's cities, according to top aide Hassan al-Suneid. He said the White House agreed, although that was never confirmed in Washington.

Last week, al-Maliki rejected a demand by a visiting top administration official that he move to disband Shiite militias by year's end. A senior al-Maliki adviser, who refused to be identified by name because of the sensitive nature of the talks, said the prime minister told U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte it would be suicidal for the Iraqi leader to move against the heavily armed militias.

These conversations, I would argue, are what prompted the strategic change. Bush, faced with a deteriorating Iraq and an intractible Prime Minister, finally deciding to abandon the idealism that has caused the failure of this war.

As the US turns over the military to the Shia government with the militias still intact, we will finally see a full civil war.

Not only will this be a civil war, but with already established militias acting as paramilitary death squads and regional players stepping in, this could be a very "dirty" war akin to some of the Central American conflicts of the 80's.

The Bob Gates appointment makes more and more sense.

The Sunnis are responding by threatenting to walk out of the government, openly take up arms, and try to draw in regional Sunni powers Saudi, Jordan, and Syria.

Sunni members of parliament over the past two days have threatened to walk out of the legislature and take up arms. They charge the Shiite-dominated government with refusing to meet their demands for a fair division of power and natural resources.

The dean of the Sunni politicians in parliament said Thursday there were attempts by Iran to run Sunnis out of the country. Adnan al-Dulaimi then called Arab countries to support Iraq's Sunni minority.

We're nearing a very bloody endpoint in all of this.

Later: (NYTimes) "Over the past two days, however, several officials said that Mr. Gates would likely be given some latitude to redefine what constitutes victory."

WaPo on Gates, the ISG, and "Stability First,"

the panel may recommend staying in Iraq but changing the nature of the U.S. effort there. The revamped operation would place less emphasis on military operations, cutting the U.S. troop presence, and stress training and advising the Iraqi army. Perhaps most significantly, the Bush administration's ambition of planting a democracy in the heart of the Middle East would be set aside, at least temporarily, in favor of bolstering Iraq's stability.