Nicholas F. Benton's White House Report:

In the debate over how many U.S. troops will be required to stabilize the situation in Iraq, including whether or not there will be a draft next year, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern makes an important point in an article published this week on the www.counterpunch.com site.

He says, "If, as I believe to be the case, the actual objectives of the war on Iraq have mostly to do with achieving military dominance over that oil-rich region and eliminating any conceivable threat to the security of Israel, four more years will mean a still larger U.S. military force there for the duration. Among other things, to leave sooner would leave Israel less safe than it was before the war, something the president's advisers are very loath to do."

Put that assessment in the context of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate's likely scenarios for Iraq, which are limited to (1) a continuation of the same level of instability, (2) devolution into deeper division and violence or (3) outright civil war. All of these outcomes represent failures of the mission that President Bush so foolishly declared accomplished aboard that aircraft carrier over a year ago.

Therefore, if allowed to continue, this administration will be locked into its own madness in a way that will fully replicate, by horrible necessity, the Vietnam precedent. The issue of troop levels cannot be assessed from the standpoint of some kind of military definition of stability. It has to be evaluated from the standpoint of the Bush administration's own perceived mission and its refusal to accept any outcome but its own definition of success.

The Bush mission is not merely to provide Iraq with its elections and some measure of a transition to democracy. Bush won't stop, if re-elected, short of military dominance not only in Iraq, but throughout the region, and ironclad security for Israel. A tall order, given that the fiasco to date has not only greatly assisted the revival of Al Qaeda, but Iran's re-emergence as the dominant force in the region.

It's unlikely that Bush's mission can be achieved at any cost, but in the process, he will pour hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops into a protracted no-win quagmire.

Already, recruitment to the U.S. military is down, especially in the National Guard. The so-called "backdoor draft" achieved by extending the stays in Iraq of Reserve and National Guard troops has led to an erosion of voluntary enlistment, with the National Guard's goal for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 falling 5,000 short. But if tours of duty in Iraq are reduced from 12 to between six and nine months to incentivize recruitment, it will only mean that still more fresh recruits will be required.

While 138,000 U.S. troops are currently in Iraq, McGovern notes that London's International Institute for Strategic Studies predicts 500,000 will be needed, greater than the 400,000 estimate of former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, who was dumped for making such a claim. Those estimates probably did not take into account the full extent of the Bush mission.

Therefore, unless a radical change in the ultimate objectives of the U.S. in Iraq is instituted, there can be no outcome short of a reinstated universal draft next year and deployment into harm’s way of hundreds of thousands of young Americans who are now thinking their futures are colleges and careers.

The die is cast if Bush is re-elected. If Kerry is elected in November, he will face a very difficult set of choices that could also require a significant increase of U.S. troop strength in the region at least for the short term.

What can change with Kerry, however, is the definition of the U.S. mission for Iraq and therefore the operative concept of mission accomplished.

Rather than Bush's objective of unilateral U.S. military domination of the region, an alternative goal of stability, reconstruction and self-determination achieved through global economic and military cooperation could bring an end to the mess, sooner rather than later. Kerry has indicated this defines, generally, his preferred course. Bush gives lip service to something along these lines, as well, but his motives are suspect at best, based on his actions leading into Iraq in the first place and the ideological obsessions of most on his foreign policy team.

However, even if Bush were to default to some Plan B outcome, he couldn't pull it off, given the unprecedented hatred he has evoked from the global community and from the Iraqi people, themselves. According to a CIA study, 90% of Iraqis now consider the U.S. as occupiers and half believe the swelling ranks Iraqi insurgents targeting Americans are trying to liberate the country.

The only hope is regime change in the U.S.

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com