Iraq Offensive Backfires

When President Bush said Friday that the Iraqi government's unprecedented offensive against Shiite militias would be a "defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," he surely didn't have in mind the results evident today.

Despite strong backing from U.S. forces, the week-long offensive failed, leaving militias holding the port city of Basra, which controls 80% of Iraqi oil. That failure appears to have weakened Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government, which are central to U.S. hopes for Iraq.

Just as discouraging, the setback strengthened the hand of Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric whose forces were the primary target of the attack and who the United States has long seen as a primary threat to stability. Not only did al-Sadr beat back government troops, he managed to portray himself as a peacemaker and al-Maliki and America as not-very-competent aggressors.

In another piece of bad news, all this helped Iran, where al-Sadr met emissaries of the Iraqi government seeking to broker a cease-fire.

Perhaps the damage will be mitigated in coming days. Fighting and political maneuvering continue. But after months of declining violence, it's hard not to chalk the offensive up as a significant setback and a recurrence of the strategic mistakes that characterized the war until the success of the recent troop "surge."

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