U.S.A. Today gets it...

Four months ago, President Bush addressed the nation from the White House at a critical moment in the Iraq war. The country was collapsing into sectarian violence. The American people were losing patience. Bush abandoned his sunny talk of steady progress. The situation was unacceptable, he said, as he made what amounted to one last bid for support behind a new plan.

While most attention was focused on his decision to send more troops to bring security to Baghdad, Bush was also unequivocal and stern about the need for Iraqi leaders to reach political milestones aimed at uniting them and persuading insurgents to stop fighting.

U.S. support was not open-ended, he said, and "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."

Ever since then, however, Iraqi leaders have been truer to sectarian instincts than to trying to achieve any sort of national reconciliation. The consequence is that Americans are left fighting and dying to nurture a government that the Iraqis themselves seem unwilling to support. That cannot be justified for much longer, and it is why the Iraq war funding bill that Bush and congressional leaders started negotiating on Wednesday needs to include meaningful benchmarks - with consequences for failure to meet them.
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While the Iraqi leaders dawdle, U.S. servicemembers are paying a very steep price. April was the deadliest month this year, with more than 100 U.S. troops dying.

And what is the Iraqi government's response? Incredibly, the parliament is planning to take a two-month summer break. Any progress on meeting benchmarks would presumably be put on hold.

The Bush administration is trying to keep the Iraqi parliament in session, but at the same time, it has backed off its formerly urgent tone about the benchmarks. Democratic leaders in Congress are pressing for standards with teeth, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and White House spokesman Tony Snow now say the Iraqis shouldn't be punished for falling short.

There shouldn't even be a partisan debate about this. Benchmarks were a key recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. In December, the panel urged the president and his national security team to be like nagging parents with Iraqi leaders. Without substantial progress, the group said, Washington should "reduce its political, military or economic support." Finding the right levers - neither too rigid nor too flexible - isn't easy. But effective pressure could include U.S. redeployments or severe constraints on future funding.

With U.S. troops dying every day - and Iraqi civilians dying in vastly greater numbers - the slow-motion pace of politics and diplomacy is maddening and unsustainable. The United States can't salvage anything in Iraq if U.S. leaders care more about holding the government together than do the Iraqis themselves. Bush should return to the solid support for benchmarks that he voiced in January, not wait for Congress to hammer him back into that position.

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Note: Another 4 dead today in the Green Zone after successful attacks. I fear some non-military people think American soldiers are "secure enough" over there, and may be surprised if the insurgents experience more success while we sit back here and give them time to plan further attacks. They are fighting to win, remember, to get us out of their country, while our motives for fighting in Iraq -- reason for overthrowing the government, definitions of success -- are still in flux. Here's what we're fighting for this week:

Bush also seemed to fine-tune his definition of victory in the war, saying: "Success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives."

Bush had most recently defined success as creating a government in Iraq that can "sustain itself, govern itself, and defend itself."

This is why you object when the Supreme Court uses non-precedent to install as president a man who has always failed in his business dealings, but was bailed out and permitted to call them successes. Even if you like his swagger, and think he was the cutest, most likeable of the candidates. Eventually, even the President's work must be honestly evaluated, no excuses or redefining failure.