Bush left with few options, even fewer chances for success in Iraq
By Warren P. Strobel

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- One way to look at the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq released this week is to review what it describes as the best-case scenario.

In that scenario, Iraq's security will improve modestly over the next six to 12 months, but violence will remain high. The U.S.-backed government will grow more fragile and remain unable to govern. Shiite and Sunni Muslims will continue to feud. All sides will position themselves for an eventual American departure.

In Iraq, best-case scenarios rarely, if ever, have come to pass.

More than four years after the invasion of Iraq, and after countless strategies, plans and revisions have failed to pacify the nation, President Bush next month faces what may be the final major decisions he can make on the war.

But even before top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker report to Congress, an event now scheduled for Sept. 11, Bush appears hemmed in by decisions he and others made months or years ago.

His generals are calling for troop cuts in Iraq because the strain has limited the Army's ability to respond to other crises. There is widespread agreement that the additional 28,000 U.S. troops dispatched by Bush will have to begin coming home when their 15-month tours start to end in April.

Bush's one-time hope in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was installed in April 2006 after intervention by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has failed to unify the government, improve basic services or pass major legislation.

Bush's move to increase troop levels has brought "measurable but uneven" security improvements, in the words of the intelligence estimate -- but utterly failed to achieve its goal of spurring political reconciliation. The level of civilian casualties and attacks remains high, the estimate found.

Bush can move backward, by initiating a troop withdrawal. He can move sideways, by seeing if there's some way to replace al-Maliki and his democratically elected government. Or he can move forward, by staying the course.

Each direction carries danger.

More...