Victory Declaration in Iraq Ill-Timed

Hold the triumphalism about the surge in Iraq.

Even as Barack Obama backpedaled on his early criticism of the surge, even as the Associated Press declared flat out that “the United States is now winning the war,” even as Ambassador Crocker said the insurgency is now no longer even a threat to Iraq’s government, reality intruded in Iraq on Monday.

And it did so in the ugly form of four suicide bombers.

Three women in Baghdad, and another suicide bomber in Kirkuk, managed to kill more than 50 people and wounded about 250.

These disgusting acts, probably committed by Al Qaeda in Iraq or some related group, suggest that the worst may not yet be over.

It’s possible that many of the gains over the last year could quickly unravel, as Shiites, who were the victims of these attacks, might retaliate against Sunnis—even members of the Sunni Awakening. And those Sunnis, who are also now armed by the United States, could retaliate in kind.

Of course, it’s also possible that the central government will hold, and that the gains over the past year will not be lost.

But these gains have been much more tenuous than we’ve been let on to believe.

And despite what John McCain has tried to say, they are not all the result of the surge.

In fact, they have as much to do with Moqtada al-Sadr telling his followers to keep their powder dry than anything else.

How long that remains the case is anybody’s guess.