Latest Updates

In Iraq, the U.S. is engaged in a war it already may have lost while losing sight of a struggle in which it still may have time to prevail.

With much territory beyond the Interim Government's control, sectarian and ethnic forces threatening to pull the country apart, and national elections likely to be postponed or held in parts of the country only, the best - perhaps only - way to hold Iraq together is to concentrate on local governance.

Amid political instability and violence, Iraq's economic problems have been viewed as secondary and unrelated. They are not. U.S. and Iraqi institutions have systematically lost and the insurgency gained momentum as living conditions failed to improve.

The situation in Iraq is more precarious than at any time since the April 2003 ouster of the Baathist regime, largely reflecting the Coalition's inability to establish a legitimate and representative political transition process.

The removal of the Ba'ath regime in 2003 opened a Pandora's box of long-suppressed aspirations, none as potentially explosive as the Kurds' demand, expressed publicly and with growing impatience, for wide-ranging autonomy in a region of their own, including the oil-rich governorate of Kirkuk.