Professor Cole's plan is not completely unreasonable but, as I've commented elsewhere, it does have a flaw or two. The cornerstone of his plan is U. S. withdrawal from “the cities” presumably in an attempt to lower the profile of U. S. presence in Iraq. Just as a hypothetical, imagine that the governor came out and announced that the highway patrol was going to enforce the speeding laws everywhere except on a 50 mile stretch of I70. I don't think that would deter speeding on that stretch of I70. I don't even think it would keep the level of speeding the same. I think that drivers would take advantage of the reduced vigilance and speed like crazy.

Similarly, I think the only way we can get the benefits of U. S. withdrawal from Iraq (presumably by demotivating a genuine insurgency in Iraq) is by withdrawing our forces from Iraq.

This does bring up an interesting point, though. IMO the insurgency (a totally inadequate word) in Iraq has several distinct components which may or may not have common command and control: Ba'athists, genuine insurgents (people who just oppose the U. S. presence), foreign jihadis, and plain street criminals. If the overwhelming preponderance of the insurgency is either genuine insurgents and/or street criminals, Cole's plan has a slim chance of success. Otherwise it's absurd. Do we have any real notion of what the actual composition is?