The Ugly Truth

"Press secretary Tony Snow yesterday dismissed a dramatic about-face in policy -- such as a division of the country or phased withdrawal -- as a 'non-starter' and called the idea that the White House will seek a course correction in Iraq 'a bunch of hooey.' . . .

"Like many who have met with the president in recent months to discuss Iraq policy, author and military expert Robert Kaplan said he detected clear limits to Bush's flexibility. 'He seemed genuinely to enjoy the challenges to his policy that we threw at him,' Kaplan said, describing a session Bush held with several outside strategists at Camp David in June. 'He wasn't at all defensive. He appeared open to any new direction or tactic, except withdrawal, and yet that is what he might be faced with after November.'"

Noam N. Levey, Janet Hook and Richard Simon write in the Los Angeles Times: "Public anxiety over the Iraq war, already reflected in polls and demands from some Democrats to withdraw U.S. troops, is now prompting calls for change from some unlikely quarters: Republican congressional candidates. . . .

"'We haven't found one part of the country, even in the South, where it is good to say, 'Stay the course,' ' said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group for GOP centrists. But Republicans 'don't want to do a major in-your-face with the president. They are trying to work around the issue in their districts.'"

Tactical Defeat

John Ward Anderson writes in The Washington Post: "A two-month U.S.-Iraqi military operation to stem sectarian bloodshed and insurgent attacks in Baghdad has failed to reduce the violence, which has surged 22 percent in the capital in the last three weeks, much of it in areas where the military has focused its efforts, a senior U.S. military spokesman said Thursday."

John F. Burns writes in the New York Times: "Perhaps the most striking element in the news conference was General Caldwell's candor. Although American commanders have struck a generally sober tone in the past year, they have been careful not to hint in public at the increasingly gloomy view that some, at least, have taken in private. In recent weeks, some senior officers have voiced growing exasperation at background briefings for reporters, particularly when discussing the ineffectiveness, dithering and corruption, as they have termed it, in the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and the prime minister's failure to act effectively on his pledge to rein in the Shiite militias that American commanders now see as the main source of instability."

Louise Roug writes in the Los Angeles Times that Caldwell "charged that Iraqi paramilitary fighters were attacking American forces more frequently because of the upcoming U.S. midterm election, in which the Iraq conflict and the American lives being lost are key issues."

But the evidence strongly suggests that this is not some sort of politically-motivated jihadi offensive. By and large, it's not the work of the jihadis at all.

"Privately, American officers say Shiite militias, some alleged to be affiliated with Iraqi government security forces, are responsible for most of the attacks against U.S. troops as well as on Sunni civilians. But commanders often find themselves stymied when going after Shiite militias, especially those affiliated with anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose political bloc holds 30 seats in parliament."

Yochi J. Dreazen and Greg Jaffe write in the Wall Street Journal, recalling how: "In yet another effort to secure Baghdad, President Bush stood next to visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in July and announced plans to shift thousands of additional American forces to Iraq's capital.

"With American and Iraqi deaths rising since then, the strategy's [sic] apparent failure to stem the violence is forcing the Bush administration to weigh a host of unpalatable choices -- and leaving the White House and Pentagon with a dwindling amount of time to decide what to do next."

David E. Sanger and David S. Cloud write in the New York Times: "The acknowledgment by the United States Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war."