More than two years after the US invaded Iraq, there is a debate in this country that is increasingly dominating the public discussion on the occupation: the issue of withdrawing US troops. Last month there were some indications coming from senior U.S. commanders that the Pentagon could begin some initial troop withdrawals sometime late next year but those statements have since been clarified and in some cases outright contradicted by senior administration officials, most importantly, the President himself. But it is a discussion that is rapidly making its way into the mainstream and one that both Democrats and Republicans realize they cannot ignore. That is due in no small part to the ongoing vigil in Crawford of military families initiated by Cindy Sheehan.

There is an increasingly heated debate brewing on Capitol Hill. In the Senate, Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold has been focusing a lot of attention on his proposal calling on the president to announce a clear timetable for beginning the withdrawal. His effort is being bolstered by Republicans like Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who last weekend compared Iraq to Vietnam drawing criticism from his fellow Republicans. In the House, an unusual coalition is developing, led in part by the man who proposed changing the name of French fries to "Freedom Fries" in the Congressional cafeteria -- North Carolina Republican Walt Jones. They too are asking for a timetable.

This is also an issue very much on the minds of many in the peace movement in the United States. Some are calling for "US out now," while others are proposing a phased pullout.

This week, one of the most respected independent Iraq analysts, Juan Cole, released a 10 point plan, outlining what he calls a responsible stance toward Iraq.

• Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan and runs a blog called "Informed Comment," which can be found at JuanCole.com.

AMY GOODMAN: This week, one of the most respected independent Iraq analysts, Juan Cole, released a ten-point plan outlining what he calls a responsible stance toward Iraq. Juan Cole is Professor of History at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He runs a blog called “Informed Comment,” which can be found at JuanCole.com. We reached him yesterday afternoon at a TV studio on the University of Michigan campus. And I asked him to simply lay out his plan. {mosgoogle right}

JUAN COLE: Right, well, I believe that the issues so far has been put in too simplistic a manner. People are saying, well, troops out now or U.S. out now, or we have to stay the course. And it seems to me that we have lots of options besides those two things, both of which, I think, are very dangerous. So, first of all, we learned from Kosovo and Afghanistan that you can accomplish a very great deal by giving close air support to an ally on the ground. So, I agree that U.S. troops should come out of Iraq. First, I think they should come out of the cities, and then ultimately I'd like to see ground forces withdrawn in the main.

And the danger in doing that, of course, is -- and all of my Iraqi friends unanimously insist that if were U.S. troops to withdraw precipitately, there would be a civil war amongst the Sunni Arabs, the Shiites and the Kurds. But it seems to me that could be prevented by giving close air support to the new Iraqi army and to other allied forces on the ground. And I was in Lebanon during the civil war. I have seen what a civil war really is. What's going on in Iraq right now is not really a civil war. It's a kind of low intensity conflict, but in a civil war, you have militias mounting set-piece battles, 2,000 guys on each side, and firing mortars and shooting at one another. And the U.S. could use its air power to prevent that kind of a large scale civil war in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal.

The reason I think that U.S. troops, ground troops, should come out is that U.S. military tactics are unsuited to Iraqi society. In the last couple years, we have seen things get worse and worse and worse in the Sunni Arab heartland. Initially, Mosul, for instance, was relatively quiet. General Petraeus had done a good job up there, but then when the U.S. military attacked Fallujah, there were sympathy demonstrations in Mosul. The police force collapsed en masse, 4,000 resigned. And the city went into instability. There were bombings all over the place. So a city of over a million now is relatively unstable compared to what it was even a year ago.

And it is partially because the U.S. uses massive force. If it gets mortar fire from a particular city quarter, it will call in a 500-pound bomb on the city quarter. Well, you are going to kill innocent civilians that way. And Iraq is a clan society. People care about their brothers, sisters, cousins, so much that they're willing to fight for them, to die for them, to fight feuds for them. I think it's hard for Americans to realize the ethos there. I'm not sure we could get a big car loan from most of our first cousins, but in Iraq, family really matters. And so, the U.S. military, by its tactics, has been incurring a series of feuds with all of the major clans in Iraq. Dulame Jubur, all of the big clans are furious at us, and they have increasingly joined the guerrilla movement. And so, the presence of U.S. ground forces in Iraq in the Sunni Arab areas, it seems to me, you know, is helpful to the extent that it stops a full-scale guerrilla war from breaking out, but it's unhelpful in the sense that it actually also is spreading around the guerrilla war.

How would you get them out without then risking the scenario I mentioned before that we saw in Lebanon of militias fighting one another? And I'm suggesting that that could be stopped by getting the ground troops out and then using the air power to give close air support to break up any militias that form formations and start to march between cities, for instance. So, I think, you know, this plan can't be charged with being irresponsible as a simple troops-out-now kind of a plan might be open to that charge.

Then there are other things. You know, as the U.S. withdraws its ground troops from Iraq, nevertheless it's going to have to keep some special forces there to -- in case the plane is shot down, somebody has got to go in and rescue those guys. The major political and religious figures have to continue to be protected. And the pipelines need better protection. Now today -- or yesterday, the pipeline was knocked out by sabotage of electricity, and there's no petroleum coming out of Iraq at the moment. So, the pipelines need better security, and a smaller concentrated U.S. force could give that kind of support to the Iraqi government.

If the pipelines were working, the new Iraqi government would have enormous petroleum resources with which to rebuild, to strengthen itself, to build up its army. Then, they need an armored corps. They need a tank corps. They have a few mechanized small units, but it's my impression that the old Iraqi tank army, which was quite formidable, was destroyed by the United States and was kept destroyed, that they were afraid of its resurrection because it might turn on the U.S. troops, and if we get the ground troops out, then there would be no bar, I think, then to just allowing the Iraqis to import tanks, train men in them, and when you have an army with a tank corps, it's much more likely to succeed against the kind of guerrilla actions that we have seen in Iraq. And so, there are these military things, I think, that could be done to get the U.S. out of Iraq.

I think there are political steps that need to be taken. The Iraqi -- present Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite religious parties and Kurds, has been extremely harsh towards the Sunni Arabs. They have adopted punitive policies towards ex-Baathists. Almost anybody who was anybody in the old Iraq was a member of the Baath Party, and most of those people hadn't committed any crimes personally. And yet, they have been fired from their jobs. Even like high school teachers who used to be Baath Party members have been fired. I think some 17,000 have lost jobs. It's been made clear to them that they don't have a position in civil society. They can’t hold high government posts. And yet, they haven't been convicted of any crime as persons. So, I think you need an amnesty for Baath Party membership. If somebody was a war criminal, then they should be tried, but if there's no charge against the person, then the mere fact of past membership in the Baath Party should not be held against them.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan. We'll come back to him in just a minute.