When the history of this latest phase of the Iraq war is written (or, at least, when an overly long article in NR is written about it), I suspect the key causes of the loss of momentum we’ve seen since the January election will include: the slowness of the Iraqis to form a government after the election; the weakness of Jaafari as prime minister; the absurd, months-long lack of a US ambassador; our continued inability to get a handle on the electricity situation; perhaps an over-estimation of the transformative effect of the election (if a majority of the country votes, that’s great, but if the minority that didn’t is the sea in which the insurgency swims, it might not matter so much, or at least as much as we thought/hoped); and most of all, the resiliency, viciousness, shrewdness, and evil of the collection of terrorists and death squads who are opposing us.