Quotes of the Day

When the golden dome of the Askariya Mosque in Samarra was destroyed last year, many Iraqis blamed not the bombers who did the deed, but American soldiers for failing to protect one of Shi‘ite Islam's holiest sites. That conformed to a pattern; for more than four years, the U.S. military has been Iraqis' scapegoat of choice for all the ills of their country.

That blame game won't work now. After the second attack on the shrine on June 13, Iraqis can point the finger at none but themselves; it is their security forces who are responsible for the shrine’s protection, and they failed miserably. Some of them may even have colluded with the bombers.

And so a sad reality of Iraq today comes into focus. The "surge" — the Bush Administration’s term for the security crackdown in and around Baghdad — is based on the assumption that Iraqi security forces are competent to do basic jobs such as guarding important structures. That is meant to free Americans for high-risk tasks, such as disposing of roadside bombs. But even before Samarra, there was a growing body of evidence that Iraqis aren't ready or willing to perform their appointed tasks. What does that imply for the U.S. military operation and when it might end? Or for the development of an Iraqi polity in which officials and soldiers grant the state—not sectarian or tribal divisions — their primary loyalty? Would it not mean that the very predicates upon which the war depended had collapsed?

American soldiers patrolling Baghdad's dangerous neighborhoods are under no illusions; many treat Iraqi soldiers and policemen with suspicion sometimes bordering on hostility. Higher up the chain of command, there are still optimists, but even they are growing more cautious. Lieut. General Martin Dempsey, the American general until recently responsible for training Iraqi forces, gave a guarded assessment of their quality not long ago, telling of absenteeism and desertion from the ranks, and the scarcity of officers. Most of the Iraqi battalions in the surge are woefully undermanned, he said. Nonetheless, Dempsey maintained that the Iraqis would be "capable of taking over security in Iraq soon." Tellingly, he declined to offer a date.

• BOBBY GHOSH
• A new attack shows that Iraq's army and police aren't up to the job