The Incredible Shrinking Agenda

"'We're still struggling,' Jones said. 'The key thing for us is we're making small steps.' The biggest victory Jones reported was getting access from the provincial governor, a Shiite Muslim in a predominantly Sunni area. . . .

"Bush talked little, asking a few questions, making a couple of jokes and giving a brief pep talk."

Who's Fooling Whom?

From Bush's Rose Garden remarks yesterday: "I also spoke by video with [Iraqi] Prime Minister [Nouri al-] Maliki to discuss the return of the Iraqi parliament that -- it was clear from my discussions that there's great hope in Iraq, that the Iraqis are beginning to see political progress that is matching the dramatic security gains for the past year. There's still work to be done, but it was a very hopeful conversation."

Does Bush really believe Maliki is a credible reporter of progress? That's hard to imagine.

As David Ignatius writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "A new movement to oust Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is gathering force in Baghdad."

And while the movement is not getting overt support from the U.S. government, Ignatius writes: "'Clearly there is a sense among the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites that the government isn't doing what it's supposed to do,' [a senior U.S. official in the Iraqi capital] explained. 'It needs to get better quick.'"

And Thinkprogress.org reports that at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, "Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Mark Kimmitt said 2008 will be 'far more difficult' than 2007 for the U.S. strategy because 'it depends far more on the Iraqis themselves to show progress on key legislation, on their economy, and reconciliation.' Kimmitt predicted only a mild chance that 'surge' security gains will last.

Said Kimmitt: "2008 and beyond will be a success, the surge will be a success, if the gains in security can be translated into gains in stability . . . if I had to put a number to it, maybe it's three in 10, maybe it's 50-50, if we play our cards right."

Over at NiemanWatchdog.org, Harvard security expert Sarah Sewall wonders how exactly you pull out of a country that lacks a functioning national political process: "U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine assumes a functioning host nation government. American officials increasingly express frustration about the ability of Iraq's national government to act in a unified or decisive manner on critical issues. What happens to the other elements of U.S. strategy in Iraq when the center cannot hold?"

Iran Watch

Robin Wright writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush warned Iran yesterday that its confrontation with three U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday was a provocative act. . . .

"'It is a dangerous situation, and they should not have done it, pure and simple,' Bush told reporters at the Rose Garden, hours before departing for a seven-leg tour of the Middle East. 'I don't know what their thinking was, but I'm telling you what I think it was: I think it was a provocative act.'"

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Thom Shanker write in the New York Times that "administration officials say they believe that Iran was trying to provoke the United States on the eve of the president's visit to the Middle East."