If that happened, U.S. Army forces in Iraq would quickly begin to run out of supplies, especially petroleum, oils and lubricants, of which they consume a vast amount. Once they are largely immobilized by lack of fuel, and the region gets some bad weather that keeps U.S. aircraft grounded or at least blind, Iran sends two to four regular army armor and mechanized divisions across the border. Their objective is to pocket American forces in and around Baghdad.

The U.S. military in Iraq is all spread out in penny packets fighting insurgents. U.S. forces have no field army there anymore. U.S. forces will be unable to re-concentrate because they are out of gas and Shiite guerrillas control the roads. What units don't get overrun by Iranian armor or Shiite militia end up in the Baghdad Kessel, or cauldron.

Gen. David Petraeus commanding U.S. ground forces in Iraq calls President George W. Bush and repeats the famous words of France's Marshal MacMahon at Sedan when he was defeated there in 1870: "Nous sorrune dans une pot de chambre, and nous y serron emerdee." -- "We are (trapped) in a chamber pot and we are about to be defecated on."

U.S. Marines in Iraq, who are mostly in Anbar province, would then be the only force the United States has left in Iraq. Their lines of supply and retreat through Jordan would still be intact. The local Sunnis would want to join them in fighting the hated Iranians. What do they do at that point? Good question. How probable is all this? I can't answer that.

Unfortunately, the people in Washington who should be able to answer it are not asking it. They need to start doing so, now.

It is imperative that U.S. policymakers have an up-to-date plan for dealing with this contingency. That plan must not depend on air power to rescue the U.S. Army. Air power always promises more than it can deliver.

As I have warned before, every American ground unit in Iraq needs its own plan to get itself out of the country using only its own resources and whatever it can scrounge locally. Retreat to the north, through Kurdistan into Turkey, will be the only alternative open to most U.S. Army units, other than ending up in an Iranian prisoner of war camp.

Even if the probability of the above scenario is low, U.S. policymakers still need to take it with the utmost seriousness because the consequences would be so vast. If the United States lost the army it has in Iraq, the nation would never recover from the defeat.

It would be another Adrianople, where the Western Roman Empire was mortally wounded in the 4th century; another Manzikert, where the Byzantine Empire lost its last real military power in the 11th century, another Rocroi, where the Spanish Empire lost its last powerful army in Europe outside its own borders in 1643.

Given the many other ways the United States now resembles Imperial Spain, the last analogy may be the most telling.

I have said all this before, in previous columns and elsewhere. If I sound like the ancient Greek prophetess Cassandra on this point, remember that events ended up proving her right.

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.)

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