SLOW FORWARD

Progress in Iraq these days is measured in how many ways sympathetic officials can tell President Bush that the war there has reached a desperately bad place for the United States. The information is not new, but the difference this time is that Congress knows to tell the president to listen.

The next secretary of defense, Robert Gates, when asked Tuesday by Sen. Carl Levin whether the United States was winning in Iraq, replied, “No, sir.” He added, “My greatest worry if we mishandle the next year or two and leave Iraq in chaos is that a variety of regional powers will become involved in Iraq, and we will have a regional conflict on our hands.”

Just before the election, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the president in a memo that, “Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”

Yesterday, the Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton and of which Mr. Gates was a part, opened its much-anticipated report this way: “The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved.”

None of what has been said is news – the administration has for years jeered critics for saying essentially the same thing – but the messengers are new. And while they do not want a rapid pullout of Iraq, they do generally support the policies of congressional Democrats. The Iraq Study Group acknowledges the potential danger of worsened violence if the United States were to leave immediately even as its dozens of recommendations make the problems of the current U.S. presence obvious.

The way forward, the group urges, is through “a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region.” It wants incentives and penalties to spur the Iraqi government and says the United States should spend more time addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict. It correctly says more troops aren’t the long-term answer to a political problem. Crucially, it calls for the United States to provide more military, political and economic aid to Afghanistan, which itself is moving toward “grave and deteriorating” conditions.

The group was candid that its ideas have been discussed many times before. President Bush did not seem especially pleased with the recommendations – “this report gives a very tough assessment of the situation” – but Congress, as was made clear by the questions to Mr. Gates by the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, knows the group’s lowered expectations and timeline for departure are the only reasonable options remaining.

Its obligation is to persuade the White House that the group’s unglamorous, modest attempt at Iraqi security is what is achievable, if the nation changes course and if it is lucky, for a war riddled with misconceptions from its beginning.