The No. 1 Priority

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Independent experts are not so optimistic. The insurgents, who target any Iraqi associated with the occupation or the interim government, have killed nearly 1,500 Iraqi security personnel. The Brookings Institution's Iraq Index tallies just 7,582 Iraqis fully or partly trained for army operations, plus 38,338 less elite national guardsmen. And U.S. and Iraqi officials are worried that the new forces are plagued by corruption and infiltration by insurgents. Baghdad is investigating whether inside collaborators tipped off the rebels who massacred 49 Iraqi trainees last month. Speaking privately, military officers in Washington concede that Iraqi forces will not be ready to carry out major offensives until late 2005 or early 2006 at best. "I don't care who is President," says a U.S. Central Command officer involved in Iraq planning. "This is—and is going to be—a largely U.S. show all the way."

Expectations for the January elections may also have been raised too high. The vote, after all, is just the start of a tortuous process. Iraqis are choosing 275 members of a National Assembly that will name an interim President and two deputies; they, in turn, will pick a Prime Minister and the Cabinet. The assembly's main job is to draft a constitution that will set permanent rules for Iraq's democratic system and usher in another round of voting by the end of 2005. The constitution must be put to a referendum by October. If it is rejected—and divvying up powers and rights among Iraq's jostling ethnic and religious factions will be extremely tricky—the whole process will start over again.

Smashing Fallujah's insurgency might make voting in that city easier, but it could also drive embittered Sunnis everywhere to boycott the balloting, as many hard-line clerics are urging. U.S. officials acknowledge that violence in some areas could make it too dangerous for residents to vote. The U.S. wanted the U.N. to organize and monitor the balloting to ensure credibility, but it won't send more than a few trained experts as long as its staff may not be safe. Insurgents are sure to challenge the legitimacy of any government elected under questionable circumstances. "Iraqis have no experience with any political weapon other than violence," says Harold Walker, a former British ambassador in Baghdad. "Trying to get them to think in a democratic way in the space of a few months is a task beyond reasonable expectation."Bush made the transformation of Iraq a moral obligation for the U.S. The British foundered in a similar attempt before him. But in the global age, Bush doesn't have the luxury of 20 years to try.