BAGHDAD — The Iraqi private who, without much success, had been trying to teach me how to accurately fire an AK-47 grinned cheerfully as I cleared the weapon and carefully laid it down. We shook hands; I wandered over to the American adviser and asked who was running the range. "An Iraqi first lieutenant," he replied, which made me think that the Iraqi military has come a long, long way.

When, at the mess hall of the Iraqi 9th division, it became clear that officers and men were eating the same food, and, what is more, eating it together, one could see that some elements of American military culture had, however superficially and temporarily, been transplanted into a very different Middle Eastern military culture. The progress of Iraqi forces is real. American advisers with Iraqi units have not been betrayed or abandoned by the Iraqis with whom they live and work, and in recent fights (unlike in the first battle of Fallujah in the spring of 2004) the Iraqis have born the brunt, and have not broken or run.

Even a brief tour of Iraq reveals that the American military has shifted its efforts to developing Iraqi security forces from attempting to defeat the insurgency — or, multiple insurgencies — on its own. With military trainers embedded down to the battalion level, logistical support from the Americans, and the watchful presence of Army and Marine units ready to lend muscle to engagements that require too much of the new Iraqi units, there has been much success. Some 60% of Baghdad is now controlled by Iraqis. No less important, even officers of the most aggressive American units dutifully tell guests that "the key to success is the development of the Iraqi forces" — and, more importantly, they mean it, acknowledging that it runs against their visceral (and very American) urge to shoulder aside weaker or less competent allies and go gun down the bad guys on their own.

Conceivably, senior American civilian and military leaders here in Iraq, from Ambassador Khalilzad and General Casey on down, are delusional or dishonest when they describe the progress they see and the confidence they feel. Perhaps, but it seems highly unlikely. After a wretched start, we have the right people at the top and the right policies in effect — and even more importantly, the right philosophy behind it all. To use the military argot, we have come to realize that the kinetic solution — i.e., the violent one — is not always the best, nor, in the long run, the decisive one.

These facts are grounds for confidence, but not too much, because Iraq can still go very badly. If, despite skilled diplomacy, a weak or sectarian Iraqi government emerges this spring; if we fail to contain the private armies and militias that sometimes substitute for public forces, and worse, sometimes infiltrate and indeed constitute those forces while serving a different master; most of all, if we fail to muster sufficient patience to remain engaged with the Iraqis, to include maintaining a military presence, albeit at reduced levels, for some time to come — we run the risk of an Iraq sliding into communal chaos, and an American withdrawal not in defeat but disgust, with incalculable consequences for regional peace and American reputation.

Levels of violence in Iraqi society remain extremely high. It is unsafe for Americans to move on the roads without well-protected convoys, and when they do they face increasingly lethal improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including particularly dangerous bombs manufactured with Iranian expertise that can destroy an M-1 tank. There is an embryonic Iraqi army, but two years of sustained effort is not enough to make it solid. This is the first year in which the Iraqi police force will come in for the kind of sustained attention that the Army has had, and it will be a more complicated endeavor. More significantly, the forces of sectarian resentment, communal suspicion and sheer criminal opportunism make Iraq's continuation as an effective unitary state a proposition open to doubt.

Despite the heroic efforts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, wasteful contracting and clever insurgent attacks (including, for example, insider sabotage of electrical plants) have thwarted clear improvements in the Iraqi economy. There are satellite television dishes in abundance, consumer goods in the stores, and cars on the road, but a helicopter flight over Baghdad and its environs reveals stretches of slums with dirt roads and green pools of sewage where children play. Iraqi civilians remain prey to thugs, warlords and sectarian vengefulness.

"This isn't a war," one senior American official in Iraq said to me. "It's violent nation building." Saddam is not coming back, and the Baathist component of the insurgency has weakened. Some Sunni nationalist groups have turned on foreign jihadi terrorists, and that is all to the good. But Iraq retains a tremendous potential for violence by multiple groups, pursuing different agendas, against the backdrop of increasing weariness with an American presence that has brought no surcease to violence, and no visible prosperity for Iraqis. As this week's attack on the Golden Mosque suggests, the United States does not always have the initiative in what is, in large part, a contest internal to Iraqi society.

What is critical now is the politics of the formation of a new government, the creation of institutions that can provide services and something resembling the rule of law for Iraqi society, and enough order for Iraq to tap its vast potential oil wealth and the abilities of its people.

To fly from base to base in Iraq is to marvel at the wealth and power of the U.S. Scores of helicopters lined up tidily on a single ramp; hundreds of armored vehicles neatly parked; hospitals that receive their patients 30 minutes after they have received their wounds; unmanned vehicles launched north of Baghdad and flown by operators in the American heartland; vast, clean cafeterias that serve copious quantities of varied and fresh food; and above all, thousands of purposeful young men and women in uniform. To see all this is to know that the raw physical strength of this country, and its organizational skills, are as extraordinary as ever. But in the end, none of these strengths, nor even the courage and tactical skill of those superbly equipped soldiers, can overwhelm the politics and society of a brutalized people. If the Iraqis manage to form a workable government, they will need help, civilian and military, for a long time to come. That help will require not only resources but the rarest of American qualities: patience.

Success in Iraq is certainly possible. Success might be defined as the creation of a unitary state, with moderately free and open governance leaving room for its many communities and confessions. A successful Iraq will be stable, albeit with much higher levels of violence than we would tolerate. But success is very far from being assured. One of the winning (in several senses of the word) qualities of the American military is its cheerful optimism. When American officers tell me that they think we are succeeding in Iraq, I trust their sincerity, and much, though not all, of their judgment. We may succeed in Iraq; we may also fail. Whether we do, however, depends partly on our skillful intervention, more on the attitudes and behavior of the Iraqis themselves, and even in the best case, on our willingness to persevere.

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Mr. Cohen is Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

© 2006 Eliot A. Cohen. Republished with permission.

© 2006 The Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland. All rights reserved.
Last updated 25Feb06 by dgips@jhu.edu