The Times is a rag, a Murdoch rag. May as well be Faux news.

Mr Bush's strategy, carried out by Lieutenant General David Petraeus, has had some impact. The number of deaths from sectarian killings, blamed on Shia death squads against Sunni civilians, has reduced and some order has been restored to areas where anarchy ruled.

This is utter BS. The numbers of victims have increased.

The other clock is ticking in America, where public support for the war is collapsing and calls for a withdrawal have spread from the Democrats to Mr Bush's own Republican Party.

Collapsing?? Public support has long collapsed. And which Republicans are voting for defunding? None.

Most observers seem to agree that Mr Bush has until the end of this summer to produce results....

Must be Friedman units the observers are refering to.

Al-Qaeda, whose suicide bombers have done so much to make Iraq ungovernable, would probably follow its publicly stated objective of turning Iraq into its main global base, with a view to expanding terror across the Middle East.

Hahahahaha, what a load of baloney. al-Qaida represents a miniscule portion of the fighters in Iraq. They are there only to fight the US. Most of the resistance fighters are home grown nationals who are sick of being occupied and want their country back.

Anyone who believes that the situation in Iraq is bad today should consider how much worse it is likely to become when the Americans decide to leave

The point of the whole article. Iraq forever a colony because they are way to infantile to run things on their own. They will just kill themselves if we leave and that would be irresponsible of us, wouldn't it?