Now the Congressional clock is ticking and is ultimately focused on the calendar — November 2008 and the Presidential election rather than the longer view of the consequences of what failure in Iraq will portend for the United States standing in the world.

General David Petraeus is set to deliver a major definitive progress report on Iraq in September. But jumping the gun for attention in July, Congressional Democrats set a new confrontation with a lame duck Administration to revive the “timetable” mantra. This clearly has more to do with the election cycle than supporting our brave troops. Still good people on both sides of the aisle agonize and debate over what should be done.

An interim report released by the Bush Administration shows that the Baghdad government has failed to meet eight out of eighteen benchmarks for military and political progress. Such a mixed preliminary report card only energizes critics in this bitter national debate. Equally it undermines the mission of the armed forces in harm’s way.

Since the troop surge there’s been clear progress on the military front. Yet, the bigger problem concerns the Iraqi government itself which is rife with sectarianism, corruption and sheer incompetence. Nor can the Nouri al-Maliki government even hit a sympathetic chord with the American people, as did Alawi for instance. The guys in Baghdad make the boys in old Saigon look like a decidedly class act.

But there are no easy answers to what I have long called the Iraq imbroglio, and more importantly the road out of Baghdad. Still any precipitous troop pullout would have far greater consequences than the current patient but persistent Petraeus strategy. The coalition forces are increasingly successful in breaking and eliminating Al Qaida operatives, and Iraqi military units are improving. The strategy appears to be winning but needs time we simply don’t have for a successful counter-insurgency operations.

For well over a year, the real battle in Iraq has shifted from the Tigris in Baghdad to the Potomac in Washington. Congressional Democrats seeing political blood in the Potomac from a badly managed war, have redoubled pushing their Iraq “timetable strategy” with a goal of routing Republicans in November 2008. Supported by a small but very vocal anti-war movement (Move-on and the gaggle of the cut-and-run Left), the Democrat party has yearned for a Summer showdown to revive the failing political fortunes of their do-nothing Congress. In this they are successful, but the withdrawal strategy offers the classic double-edged sword; a collapse of Iraq into chaos (well beyond what we can begin to imagine) will cause a backlash in Washington not over “who lost Iraq” but rather “how could we not have seen this outcome?”

Seeing this, the Europeans are now noticeably less critical of U.S. policy. And UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meeting in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, expressed deep concerns over Iraq, especially in light of what could be a precipitous change in American policy.

Media driven assessments form part of the problem too. With a 24 hour media cycle, the Iraq war comes into living rooms 24/7 — the terrorists know this and no doubt plan their military strategy to make news with daily car bombs and attacks on mosques. Focused attacks mostly in Baghdad and a few other centers are guaranteed to generate media. The sectarian strife overwhelmingly concerns killing fellow Muslims, causing steady American casualties, and the drumbeat of grisly carnage forebodes defeat. The obvious question becomes — why can’t we stop it?

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (one of the few competent members of the government) has warned that if there are major coalition troop pullouts, Iraq could disintegrate. He fears civil war, the division of the country, or wider regional conflict. Still America does not have the political stamina for this type of murky long term commitment especially given troop losses exceeding 3,500.

If America is seen to being “forced to leave” or at worst prematurely pulls out, the retreat will massively reinvigorate global Islamic jihadi terrorists both in the Middle East as well as Europe and the USA.

Come September we shall have a formal progress report by General Petraeus. Either way the Iraq war will pose a political millstone to whoever occupies the White House in 2009. The specter of Saddam Hussein has haunted Four Administrations (Bush I, Clinton twice, Bush W) and will shadow Washington well into the future.