The book also provides the stunning insight that the so-called 'surge' was not the primary source of the 'drop' in violence last year.

'The book also says the U.S. troop "surge" of 2007, in which President Bush sent nearly 30,000 additional U.S. forces to Iraq, was not the primary factor behind the steep drop in violence there during the last 16 months.

Rather, Woodward reports, "groundbreaking" covert techniques, beginning in 2007, enabled U.S. military and intelligence officials to locate and kill insurgent leaders and key individuals in extremist groups.

Woodward does not disclose the code names of the covert programs or provide much detail about them, saying in the book that White House and other officials cited national security concerns in asking him to withhold specifics.

Overall, Woodward writes, four factors combined to reduce the violence: the covert operations; the influx of troops; the agreement by militant cleric Muqtada Sadr to rein in his powerful Mahdi Army militia; and the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq and allied with U.S. forces.'

As always, of course, one must read between the lines. One of the sentences above should, for example, of course read:

'enabled U.S. military and intelligence officials to locate and kill people they had decided were insurgent leaders and people they had decided were key individuals in groups defined as 'extremist' groups by the American occupying army.'

Will this 'strategy' work? As always, one must remember the Imperial goals: to prevent Iraqi democracy, and to turn Iraq into a passive client state, with lots of happy brown people producing oil for the White Man. The creation of a number of military bases from which attacks on Iran could be launched would be an added bonus.

So far, this plan has been quite a success, but there is a fly in the ointment.

'As Baghdad and Washington officials try to hammer out a final agreement laying out the terms of a continued American military presence in Iraq, Iranian officials have ratcheted up pressure on their Iraqi counterparts to reject a deal.

Last month, Iraqi and American negotiators agreed on a draft proposal for the continued presence of U.S. soldiers in the country, according to negotiators on both sides of the deal. The draft calls for a withdrawal of American combat troops from population centers by next summer and sets a goal for their removal from the rest of the country by the end of 2011. Tens of thousands of soldiers would likely remain to assist in training and equipping Iraqi security forces, among other duties.

Any deal still needs approval from Iraqi officials, and terms of a final agreement haven't been set. But Iran, which shares a long border and a history of conflict with Iraq, has made it clear it is unhappy over progress made so far in the talks. Iran's parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, earlier this week told Iraqi journalists that a security deal with the U.S. would humiliate the dignity of Iraq. On the same day, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes opposition by Iran has also intensified, according to Iraqi officials. Some top leaders of the two main Iraqi Shiite political parties, the Islamic Dawa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, were sheltered in Iran for almost two decades.'

There will be much talk in the corporate media over the next few months and years about Iran's 'threat' to Israel. All this talk is a fraud and a lie. The real threat is to Iraq. Iran stands in the way of American colonial ambitions in the Middle East (indeed, now that Libya has been bought off, and Syria weakened, Iran is really the only country that has the power and the desire to prevent total American control of the entire region).

If Iran continues to dig in its heels, then the Americans will lose Iraq. And that can't be allowed to happen. So, unless the Iranians back down (and there is little sign so far that they will) the US (or the American's faithful little rottweiler, Israel) will be forced to attack Iran.