Shifting Power

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If that's a glimpse of battles yet to be fought, it is hardly reassuring for Brahimi and his newly ardent American backers as they try to drag Iraq toward their ultimate goal: holding national elections, scheduled to take place in January. That task may prove to be the most daunting of all, given that the U.N. will need monitors on the ground soon to help prepare for a vote. The U.S. has been quietly sounding out other countries to see whether they would help staff security teams protecting U.N. election officials. "Some countries that haven't [yet] contributed troops might be willing to," says a State Department official. But turning that hope into reality requires, at minimum, a sustained reduction in the violence of the past few weeks. While Brahimi has offered the Bush Administration a plan B, the U.S. has plenty of work left to do in Iraq if it hopes to avoid plan C.

--Reported by Brian Bennett, Meitham Jasim, Paul Quinn-Judge and Michael Ware/Baghdad and Massimo Calabresi and Adam Zagorin/Washington