Tony Cordesman, a sober-minded conservative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has long been skeptical of the neoconservative project for the Middle East. In a recent commentary, he wonders if in fact we are losing in Iraq. He has been waxing pessimistic for a while, but in this piece, excerpted below, it seems that Cordesman is beginning wonder wheher the whole thing is lost. Importantly, he points out that the violence is not confined to Baghdad, where 14,000 have died since January. Basra and Kirkuk, too, are falling into civil war.

Worse, the Iraqi police and security forces are simply not ready for the mission as long as there is no political compromise. The most frightening indicator of just how bad the situation really is, is that the Iraqi government has now had to ask Iraqis to check the IDs of police and soldiers to make sure they are legitimate. Fine when they are legitimate. A great way to get killed when they are not. The “year of the police” may well be making real progress, but the manning totals for Iraqi police and security forces are meaningless. It is all too clear that many who were trained and equipped are not still serving and that many who do serve are passive and/or corrupt. They also are often outgunned and outmanned by the militias and local security forces, in Baghdad and in many other areas.

Intra-Shi'ite violence and divisions are also growing, and reports that do not identify Basra as a massive security problem and flashpoint are simply decoupled from reality. The same is true of Kirkuk, where actual violence is still limited, but the militias are steadily building up and ethnic cleansing is rising. Smaller towns and cities are also problems, reported or not, and serious tensions are emerging between Sadr and the mainstream “quietest” Shi'ite clergy, whether they are reported or not.

These trends strongly argue that the Iraqi government and United States are now losing, not winning. They are scarcely based on firm data, however, and they scarcely mean the struggle is lost. What they do mean is that the Maliki government must act far more quickly and decisively, that Iraq's factions have no time to bargain by attrition if they seriously want to avoid civil war or dividing the country, and that the United States must be prepared to rush in aid if this can move political compromises forward. No one knows the odds of failure or success at this point, but they are notably worse in July than in early June, and they have been slowly deteriorating for months.