The US will retreat into the four very large permanent bases it has built in the desert. It will have signed permanent "leases" for them, very much the way it has for Guantanamo in Cuba. From there it will project power all over the Middle East, especially controlling the oil fields.

It will NEVER leave those bases. American troops and airmen will go into those enclaves, rarely venturing out except to protect the oil interests.

It will try to contain the Iraqi civil war to Iraq. As long as there is a semblance of a puppet government in Baghdad it will try to protect it's embassy there. When the Iraqis throw the Americans out, that will be abandoned to the Iraqis as not being easily protected. But it will claim the leases, as well as the agreements regarding Western multi-national looting of the oil resources are permanent and irrevocable.

Which will meet the all the goals of the Bush regime in the first place. "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" meant the oil fields were under American military control and a permanent military presence established. It had nothing to do with the plight of the Iraqis. (Obviously, as shown the way the US has treated them.)

(The above citation is old, and understates the size of the bases.)

(Here's another: "As of mid-2005, the U.S. military had 106 forward operating bases in Iraq, including what the Pentagon calls 14 "enduring" bases all of which are to be consolidated into four mega-bases.")

Arf