The war in Iraq entered a new phase last week

Laconic statements from the White House

and the Pentagon confirmed what had long been suspected

The US is planning a long-term military presence in Iraq

This is a significant geopolitical development

What are the motives driving such long-term ambitions?

The wish to retain control of energy resources

If there were no oil in Iraq, the US would not be there

Another is the ability to project US power

over the whole of the oil-rich Gulf and beyond,

a vast area from central Asia to east Africa

The Pentagon will maintain a series of military bases around Iraq with some 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops.

That plan would have them stay for decades, under the excuse that they could train the Iraqi troops and deter neighboring countries, such as Iran and Turkey, from sending their own troops into the country.

Already the U.S. has built military compounds that look permanent, supplied with air-conditioning, movie theatres, Starbucks coffee houses, and fast food outlets.

The idea is hardly new. For the last decade, the neocons have advocated that the U.S. establish bases in Iraq to police the Middle East and make the area safe for Israel.

Although no one is totally certain why the Bush Administration took us into the quagmire of Iraq, it seems plausible that securing bases in that part of the world was one significant factor.

At the time, the U.S. had major military installations in Saudi Arabia; but they had generated considerable opposition among the Saudis and in the rest of the Arab world, with the result that the Royal family was increasingly desirous of getting rid of them.

Why are we building the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad? Iraq is a relatively small, unimportant, and backward country sitting on a lot of oil.

That the U.S is constructing this mammoth compound tells the world that it is planning to occupy that part of the globe for a long time.

Iraq will become an unofficial colony used to police the rest of the Middle East.

In particular, the U.S. will be watching over Persia or, as it is now called, Iran.

The Persians have a long and great history and will not relish the idea that a western Christian newcomer will be supervising their behavior.

Nor will the Sunni governments in the region look with favor on this "crusading" state’s attempting to dictate their actions.

Withdrawal won't happen.

The US plans permanent military bases in Iraq, confirming to many that it really was all about oil.

Almost unnoticed, the war in Iraq entered a new phase last week. Laconic statements from the White House and the Pentagon confirmed what had long been suspected - the US is planning a long-term military presence in Iraq.

This is a geopolitical development of the first importance.

In spite of current difficulties - May was the most lethal month for American soldiers since 2004, with 119 killed - the United States firmly intends to maintain control of Iraq and its vast oil reserves. Iraq's neighbours, and energy-hungry states and oil companies, will take note.

On a visit to Honolulu on May 31, Robert Gates, the defence secretary, said that the United States was looking for a "long and enduring presence", under an arrangement with the Iraq government.

"The Korea model is one, the security relationship we have with Japan is another," he said. US troops have been in South Korea since the end of the Korean war and in Japan since 1945.

"Last week the White House spokesman Tony Snow confirmed that President Bush wanted a lengthy troop presence in Iraq. "The situation in Iraq, and indeed, the larger war on terror, are things that are going to take a long time," he said.

Such statements, and the planning that goes with them, make nonsense of the current debate - in Congress, the press and the public - about a date for withdrawal from Iraq, and whether the surge is producing results. The administration is looking way beyond that.

What are the motives driving such long-term ambitions? The wish to retain control of energy resources, bearing in mind potential rivals such as China, is clearly one.

If there were no oil in Iraq, the US would not be there.

Another is the ability to project US power over the whole of the oil-rich Gulf and beyond, a vast area from central Asia to east Africa.

Other motives include confronting hostile Iran and Syria; making up in Iraq for the loss of bases in Saudi Arabia; and, not least, being on hand to protect Israel. Indeed, these were the main reasons for the invasion four years ago.

Seen in this light, the US enterprise - for all the talk of democracy - is an unmistakable neo-colonial or imperial project such as the region suffered at the hands of Britain and France in an earlier age.

Jimmy Carter was prescient when he declared last year: "There are people in Washington ... who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq ... the reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region."

Are these ambitions realistic? Or will they simply pile up problems for the US's already deplorable relations with much of the Arab and Muslim world?

General Anthony Zinni, formerly in charge at US central command, has described permanent bases as "a stupid idea and clearly politically unacceptable.

"It would damage our image in the region where people would decide that this was our original intent."

As early as 2004, Jessica Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in Washington, said permanent bases would reinforce Iraqi suspicions that the US launched the war to get a hand on Iraqi oil, with a puppet government in Baghdad.

Yet the building of US military bases in Iraq continues apace, at a cost of over $1bn a year.

Shortly after the invasion, the US established 110 bases in Iraq. The present plan appears to consolidate these into 14 "enduring bases" in Iraqi Kurdistan, at Baghdad airport, in Anbar province, and in the southern approaches to Baghdad.

This does not point to an early US disengagement. And nor does the construction of a US embassy able to house 1,000 staff on a 100-acre site on the banks of the Tigris - the biggest US embassy in the world. Patrick Seale @ Guardian