Hold applause in Iraq.

Byline: The Register-Guard

All of a sudden, you can't swing a cat in the nation's capital without hitting someone who is "feeling better" about the way things are going in Iraq.

From Brookings Institution analysts Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollock's now-famous declaration in a recent New York Times op-ed column that, "There is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008" to the upbeat assessment of Sen. John McCain during a Republican presidential debate Sunday that, "They are making progress, and we are winning on the ground," everything's coming up roses in Iraq.

There's no dispute that the infusion of more than 30,000 U.S. troops and six months of fierce, high-casualty fighting has produced military gains in Iraq. It's inconceivable that such a commitment wouldn't have produced positive results. What's missing from the latest round of nervous applause for the military's hard-won progress is what's supposed to have accompanied it; in short, what the 590 soldiers killed since the surge began died to provide.

The cornerstone of President Bush's surge strategy was that additional troops would provide the security necessary in Baghdad to allow the Iraqi government to make demonstrable political progress on key benchmarks. Chief among those were reducing sectarian violence and passing legislation to promote national reconciliation.

No fair assessment of the Iraqi government's performance in the six months since the surge began would conclude that substantive progress has been made anywhere. In fact, the prospects of accomplishing anything were so remote that not even Bush's pleading could prevent the Iraqi parliament from packing up and taking the month of August off.

Frankly, it's hard to blame them. The legislative assembly is hopelessly divided. On Monday, the five cabinet ministers loyal to Iraq's first post-Saddam leader announced that they will boycott government meetings, aggravating the political crisis that threatens to topple Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.

The boycott of ministers loyal to former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi left the government with no Sunni participants and raised to 17 the number of ministers who either have suspended membership or quit this year. So much for reconciliation.

The U.S. military successes against insurgents haven't helped the Iraqi government achieve another key objective of the surge: protecting the civilian population. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the country's brutal civil war increased by more than a third in July. At least 1,652 civilians were killed last month, according to the Iraqi government.

Republicans desperate to salvage some semblance of progress in the debacle that Bush has created in Iraq need to rein in their tendency to exaggerate every morsel of good news. Not a single general, including current commander Gen. David Petraeus, ever has said there is a military solution in Iraq.

That means military success without corresponding political progress is meaningless. Anyone who suggests that the surge can offer sustainable hope for the Iraqi people absent a government that is committed to ending the sectarian bloodshed is either a fool or a liar.

Hold applause in Iraq

Military progress doesn't signal success for surge