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A Way Forward in Iraq

Sunday, May 2, 2004; Page B06

IT'S BEEN A YEAR since President Bush made his ill-advised landing on an aircraft carrier to celebrate victory in Iraq under a "Mission Accomplished" banner. We said at the time that the slogan was wrong, that much remained to be done in Iraq and that the greatest tests and risks still lay in the future. A year later, that judgment has been proven correct to a far greater extent than we anticipated. More than 600 Americans have died in Iraq during the past 12 months, and more than a fifth of those deaths came in the past 30 days. Iraq is more insecure today than it was a year ago, and the U.S. capacity to deal with that insecurity has been considerably diminished. Although, as he pointed out on Friday, Mr. Bush has a plan to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 with the help of the United Nations, his objective of "a free and peaceful country" appears a distant -- some would say vanishing -- prospect.

In reexamining six months ago our own support for the invasion, we concluded that success or failure in the effort to stabilize Iraq under a peaceful and representative government would provide the ultimate answer to the question of whether the war should have been undertaken. It can fairly be asked now whether that mission is achievable. At stake is not only embarrassment or political defeat for the war's supporters: Failure in Iraq now would be a catastrophe for this nation and its interests, and a historic victory for Islamic extremists and terrorists. Nor would a judgment that a stable Iraq is unattainable necessarily justify the early withdrawal of U.S. troops. Almost certainly American soldiers would be needed to oppose the emergence of extremist forces that could pose an immediate threat to the United States and its allies.

In our view, however, it is too early for such calculations. As much as has gone wrong in recent months, there remains a viable way forward on both the political and military fronts. That course is one identified not by us or the Bush administration but by United Nations mediators and Iraqis themselves. The administration has begun to embrace this strategy, but there is still much more the president must do to make a successful outcome possible.

America's greatest disadvantage now is that it has almost entirely lost the political authority and public tolerance it enjoyed in Iraq a year ago. A poll released last week by CNN and USA Today showed that 71 percent of Iraqis regard coalition troops as occupiers. Fifty-seven percent say they would like the foreign forces to leave immediately, even though a majority also say that a pullout would make the situation worse. The many errors of the U.S.-led occupation, ranging from failure to create a more international administration to the slowness of reconstruction and, most recently, the shocking reports of mistreatment of prisoners have helped create a situation in which no U.S. political initiative is likely to be accepted by Iraqis. Unilateral military actions, even against extremists with little support, risk touching off a national uprising.

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