Iraq: maybe not a smashing success

I'm still ticked about Martin Peretz' piece in The New Republic (a cover story, no less!) whining about liberal disregard for Bush's great achievements in the Middle East. As far as I'm concerned, most liberals are waiting for genuine results before heaping praise on Fearless Leader. And according to the Boston Globe, the military isn't feeling very confident in the situation these days. I'm certainly not gloating about it-- it's just another tragic sign that the Iraq war was mishandled from the start, and things show no sign of improvement. As much as I dislike this administration, I wish that-- given their resolve to invade-- they had at least done it in a way that didn't scream incompetence to even a military know-nothing like myself. Moving on, here's an excerpt:

WASHINGTON -- Insurgents in Iraq have staged increasingly sophisticated attacks in recent weeks, according to US military assessments, moving beyond roadside bombings and suicide attacks to mount large-scale assaults against US and Iraqi forces and civilians.

The greater coordination and larger scope of the attacks has prompted some commanders to reexamine their belief that the insurgency was on the wane, even though the number of daily attacks has fallen since the landmark Jan. 30 election, according to leading US military officials.

Senior military strategists, speaking privately, also said they worry that insurgents are making inroads toward sparking a full-blown sectarian war and offered cautions about recent predictions that the United States could significantly reduce its forces from the current 142,000 within a year.
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But don't just take the Boston Globe's word for it-- the Christian Science Monitor offers the same analysis:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0425/dailyUpdate.html