Clock ticks on Baghdad crackdown

By Ross Colvin - Analysis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government may win the Battle of Baghdad but lose the war, by squandering the breathing space the U.S.-backed crackdown in the capital was meant to give it to reconcile the country's warring communities.

"All of it is determined by matching military progress with progress in reconciliation ... We have zero tangible progress in political reconciliation," said Anthony Cordesman, a prominent military analyst in Washington.

A wave of bombings blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda that killed nearly 200 people in Baghdad on Wednesday was a terrible reminder that time is fast running out for the government to stop the country plunging into all-out civil war.

Opinion polls also show Americans want out of the unpopular four-year-old conflict, and political pressure is mounting on President George W. Bush to set a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal. The Baghdad offensive is seen as his last throw.

"This is a battle of perceptions," said Cordesman. "If they don't make progress in six months, political patience in the United States is going to be critical."

Tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have deployed in Baghdad, epicenter of the bloodletting between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, sweeping through neighborhoods and setting up joint security stations to patrol secured areas.

They have succeeded in reducing the daily death toll in the city, especially targeted killings blamed on Shi'ite militias, but car bombings like Wednesday's and a surge in violence outside Baghdad have caused the overall toll in Iraq to go up.

But that is not the full picture. The drop in violence is also due to the feared Mehdi Army militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who gave his tacit support to the crackdown, laying down their weapons and keeping a low profile.