Let's lend an ear to Michael Hirsch's piece over at Newsweek

The British are leaving, the Iraqis are failing and the Americans are staying—and we’re going to be there a lot longer than anyone in Washington is acknowledging right now. As Democrats and Republicans back home try to outdo each other with quick-fix plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and funds, what few people seem to have noticed is that Gen. David Petraeus’s new "surge" plan is committing U.S. troops, day by day, to a much deeper and longer-term role in policing Iraq than since the earliest days of the U.S. occupation. How long must we stay under the Petraeus plan? Perhaps 10 years. At least five. In any case, long after George W. Bush has returned to Crawford, Texas, for good.

Now you, silly creature that you are, probably think you remember when SecDef Gates, Gen. Pace, and others tried to tamp down outrage over Bush's escalation by saying that it was all different this time. Sure, they said, there was nothing really new about The New Way Forward-- in fact, we've tried every aspect of the plan before and it only made things worse-- but it would all work this time, honest, because the Maliki government had "stepped up" and the Iraqis would be in the lead. Why, US troops would be little more than training wheels on the shiny new bike that is the Iraqi government's state-funded Shi'ite militias professional security forces. Here's Pace in front of Levin's Armed Services Committee:

'We will not be out front by plan,' Pace said of U.S. forces. 'The Iraqis would be the ones going door-to-door, knocking on doors, doing the census work, doing the kinds of work that would put them out in front for the first part of the - if it develops - firefight. Our troops would be available to backstop them and to bring in the kind of fire support we bring in.'

See, just a backstop, not out in front. No one puts a backstop out in front, that's just silly. I mean, its not called a "frontstop", right?

So, how's that working out?

The much anticipated effort to wrest Baghdad streets from the control of militias and insurgents has been presented in news conferences and public statements as an Iraqi-led operation. Iraqi officials have been out front, announcing arrests, weapons finds and other details, as well as new decrees intended to halt two years of so-called sectarian cleansing. But on the streets, the joint patrols seemed little different from those of the past few years: A handful of Iraqis, acting at the direction of a larger group of Americans, opening drawers and closets and looking behind furniture as they searched for banned weapons or other contraband. For the first few days of the operation, about 2,500 American troops took part, compared with about 300 Iraqi forces, a mix of police and Army personnel, military officials said

Well, surely this is just opening night jitters. You know, working the bugs out, and all that. After all, Gates told us that if we'd just be quiet little citizens and let Bush have his "surge", why, heck, we'd be able to get out of there sooner!

President Bush's new operation to secure Baghdad will begin in earnest with a push by thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops in the first week of February, and its chances of success should be evident within a few months, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told lawmakers yesterday. If the plan works, the United States could begin drawing down troop levels by the end of the year, Gates said. If the Iraqi government does not deliver troops and political and economic support, he said, the United States could withhold many of the 21,500 additional troops Bush has ordered to secure the most violent parts of Iraq.

You know what's coming. Back to Hirsch:

Under Petraeus’s plan, a U.S. military force of 160,000 or more is setting up hundreds of "mini-forts" all over Baghdad and the rest of the country, right in the middle of the action. The U.S. Army has also stopped pretending that Iraqis—who have failed to build a credible government, military or police force on their own—are in the lead when it comes to kicking down doors and keeping the peace. And that means the future of Iraq depends on the long-term presence of U.S. forces in a way it did not just a few months ago. "We’re putting down roots," says Philip Carter, a former U.S. Army captain who returned last summer from a year of policing and training in the hot zone around Baquba. "The Americans are no longer willing to accept failure in order to put Iraqis in the lead. You can’t let the mission fail just for the sake of diplomacy."

We're getting played again, people. While we have been dithering over the verbiage for this or that resolution to stop Bush's stated escalation plan, he has actually been moving forward with a wholly different plan that ensures that US forces will remain in Iraq for years to come. A plan that puts our forces at greater risk by spreading them out into smaller and smaller groups. A plan that makes the Iraqi people more dependent on US troops for day-to-day security, and ensures that the country really will collapse if we leave. A plan that requires a major US presence in Iraq long after Der Fratboy and Deadeye Dick have weaseled off to cut brush and count their war profits.

So, how about it? Are you going to allow yourself to get punk'd by Bush again? Are you going to take this lying down, and change the channel, pretend its all someone else's problem? Or are you going to fight this madness by calling your Congressional Rep. and Senators and letting them know that its time to take the gloves off?

What's it gonna be?