No Closer to Success in Iraq

President Bush's chief Iraq standard-bearers, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, have the grave misfortune of beginning two days of critical testimony before Congress tomorrow with the fiasco of the Iraqi government's offensive in Basra still fresh in our memories -- and with Shiite rockets and mortars still raining on the Green Zone.

All signs are that the two men will attempt to make an essentially impossible argument: They will deny that the offensive was a debacle, while citing it as an example of how gains in Iraq are tenuous. They will, in short, try to use the latest news as evidence that Iraq isn't ready for us to leave.

But the recent violence is more clearly evidence that staying in Iraq isn't getting us any closer to Bush's promise of "success."

When the president announced in January 2007 that he was sending more troops to Iraq -- rather than starting to bring them home -- he argued that escalating the American commitment would ultimately accelerate the U.S. withdrawal by bringing about national reconciliation.

Today, though the White House may try to spin the Basra offensive as the work of an Iraqi government coming into its own, the violence has laid bare the political rivalries and military unreadiness that the surge has been unable to address.

Despite the overwhelming public sentiment in favor of bringing our troops home, an honest assessment of the current situation in Iraq leads to the conclusion that withdrawal on the terms Bush imagines is no closer than it was 15 months ago.

The Coverage

Tina Susman and Ned Parker write in the Los Angeles Times: "When Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker brief Congress this week, they will be hard-pressed to depict Iraq as moving toward stability in the wake of recent violence that sent deaths soaring to their highest level in seven months.

"Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's move against Shiite Muslim militias has revealed the gravity of the country's Shiite rivalries, just as U.S. forces are decreasing their presence.

"The intense combat in southern Iraq that pitted Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army against Iraqi and American forces has largely wound down for the time being, but the enmity that fueled it remains. Fighting between the two sides flared Sunday in Baghdad, leaving as many as 22 dead. . . .

"The Iraqi government's Basra offensive last month and the battles with Sadr's Mahdi Army militia that quickly spread across southern Iraq and into Baghdad show how rivalries between Shiite factions jeopardize the country's stability. The fighting also revealed the wobbly state of the Iraqi security forces and, some critics say, Maliki's propensity for barging into a volatile situation without proper planning."

Sudarsan Raghavan writes in The Washington Post that "Iraq's worst violence in months" threatens "to escalate a conflict among Shiites that could further draw in U.S. troops. . . .

"Sadr's followers view a recent U.S.- and British-backed Iraqi government offensive in the southern port city of Basra as an attempt by their Shiite rivals to weaken Sadr's movement ahead of provincial elections later this year. Iraq's security forces, they say, are tools used against them by their rivals. Clashes erupted across southern Iraq and Baghdad" and "tensions remain high."