WASHINGTON: Despite vows of no surrender in Iraq, the United States has been thrust into a painful military dilemma by a swelling insurgency, days after a top Shia leader ambushed its new political strategy.

Analysts here say the Bush administration faces a “no-win” decision on whether to turn up the heat on insurgents which have turned their fury on its foreign and Iraqi allies.

But more robust military operations risk catching civilians in the crossfire and further souring the populace’s view of the occupation.

Intense pressure is also weighing on US political strategy in Iraq, after the religious leader of Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority demanded immediate elections — in a direct challenge to US plans for an accelerated transfer of power.

Bush aides vow they will not be bullied into retreat after a weekend stained by bloody firefights between rebels and US forces and the killings of seven Spaniards, two South Koreans, two Japanese, and a Colombian linked to the reconstruction effort.

But Simon Serfaty of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said US forces were in a “lose-lose” situation as battles with insurgents heat up.

“You cannot afford to remain passive in the face of a growing number of attacks against coalition forces, so you have got to rattle them a bit.

“At the same time, inevitably, you inflict some civilian casualties ... that creates bad will on the part of the populace.”

The choice was laid bare in the Iraqi city of Samarra, after US forces unleashed a ferocious counterattack after an attempted ambush, killing at least 54 people, eight of whom were said to be civilians.

“We are going to continue to take the fight to this enemy,” said Colonel Frederick Rudesheim, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team involved in the combat.

There is no other choice, said Dana Dillon, of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“It is always a risk when you are taking the fight to an insurgency that you are going to overstep a boundary somewhere if not by policy, at least by accident.

“But the danger of not doing something is greater.”

Anecdotal evidence challenges American rhetoric that insurgent “thugs” don’t speak for a majority supportive of the US effort.

Seventy-nine per cent of 3,244 Iraqis polled by British firm Oxford Research International had no confidence in US-led forces occupying Iraq, despite satisfaction at the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Unease among US allies may also be growing, after attacks on contractors, police, soldiers and diplomats linked to the occupation after previous strikes on the United Nations and Iraqis cooperating with the Americans.

The deaths come with the Bush administration still resisting the international dimension needed to legitimize reconstruction in Iraq, critics said.

“The problem is they are trying to internationalize it on US terms,” said Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies.

“They are not internationalizing the power, all they are internationalizing is the color of the corpses.”

US plans to speed up a transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis may also be in trouble.

A top Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, last week demanded immediate elections at all levels of the Iraqi administration, rejecting US arguments that polls were impossible before 2005.

“The reality is one person, one vote does mean a Shia majority in Iraq — that is the nature of the country,” said Bennis.

US policy could then be “caught in a bind between wanting to have something that they can call democracy and wanting to be sure that it is a pro-American result,” she said.

“They may be forced to chose one or the other.”

But the State Department insisted Monday there would be no change to the US plan to hand power to a government designated by a transitional authority, chosen by caucuses of selected notables.

“The plan of November 15th, the agreement that we and the governing council reached remains in place,” said spokesman Richard Boucher.

Vibrancy in the insurgency has reverberated around Washington’s political echo-chamber, less than a year after President George W. Bush faces voters.—AFP