Who Will Run Iraq?

As American troops launched a military operation against enemy fighters in Iraq last week, U.S. officials in Baghdad were having nearly as tough a time with some of America's friends. Two months since riding into Baghdad as Iraq's rulers-in-waiting, the anti-Saddam groups that the U.S. funded, trained and armed before the war are griping that they have been pushed aside by an American Administration that has effectively decided to run the country on its own.

Earlier this month the U.S. ripped up previous commitments to allow Iraq's seven former opposition parties — a coalition calling itself the...