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.

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