"50 soccer games"

McCain is surely right about one thing, even though he retracted it later, he will lose if more progress isn't made in Iraq.

Mr. McCain said he believed opinion was shifting to his point of view, referring to a recent USA Today poll that, he said, showed that “now the majority of Americans believe the surge is succeeding.”

The USA Today/Gallup poll he was apparently referring to, however, found that not a majority, but 43 percent of Americans believed the troop increase was “making the situation there better,” an increase from 22 percent last July.

The poll, conducted Feb. 8 to 10, also underscored just how unpopular the war continues to be, with 60 percent saying it was a mistake.

Yet the new dynamic in Iraq — with American casualties plummeting and violence in Baghdad falling to 2005 levels — has altered the political landscape for Mr. McCain since last summer, when American troop deaths spiked and his candidacy ran aground.

That's not a true correlation. McCain's campaign didn't stall because of Iraq. Republicans don't like him, that's why he stalled. He just got extremely likely that Romney never could get traction, Giuliani ran a really bad campaign, Huckabee never had the resources, and Thompson...well...enough said about him.

Anyway, McCain know defines "victory" as "it's generally quiet."

Mr. McCain has continued to paint a far rosier picture than the Democratic candidates, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, about military progress in Iraq, as well as political gains. He said Monday that his close friend and supporter Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, had just returned from Iraq, where he flew over Baghdad and counted “50 soccer games going on.”

“It’s generally quiet,” Mr. McCain said, “recognizing there will be suicide bombers for the foreseeable future, just as the Israelis continue to encounter suicide bombers because they’re the most difficult thing to counter in warfare.”

It's interesting, we've really stopped talking about "Iraq," but rather focus almost exclusively on "Baghdad." Don't know much about geography, but I believe it's a fairly large failed state. So let's see, we should be about ready to reduce troop levels soon, right?

Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, head of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that by July the troop total was likely to be 140,000. There were 132,000 troops there when President Bush approved orders to send five more Army brigades to Iraq to improve security and avert civil war.

General Ham also announced that the Pentagon believed that United States force levels in Afghanistan would be at 32,000 in late summer, up from about 28,000 now. The current total is the highest since the war began in October 2001, and 3,200 more marines are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan this spring.

It had been widely expected that some support troops sent to Iraq with the five extra brigades would need to remain, even after July. But until now it was not clear what the number would be.

General Ham stressed that his projected number of 140,000 was subject to change depending on security conditions, but it was the first time the Pentagon had publicly estimated the total.

Asked if the total would be below 132,000 by the time President Bush leaves office next January, General Ham said, “It would be premature to say that.” Among the support forces needed beyond July, General Ham said, are military police officers, logistics troops, aviation forces and a headquarters staff to command combat forces in an area south of Baghdad. The headquarters of the Third Infantry Division was installed there as part of President Bush’s increase in forces in April. It will be replaced this summer by an unspecified unit, General Ham said.

But Huckleberry Graham saw some soccer games. From a helicopter. What gives?

BAGHDAD — An explosion aboard a crowded bus traveling to the Syrian border from Mosul killed at least nine passengers on Tuesday morning, according to Iraqi officials.

There was confusion about the source of the attack. Military officials said a passenger detonated a suicide vest aboard the bus. Employees at the bus company where the driver worked attributed the explosion to a roadside bomb.

The attack took place about 500 yards from an Iraqi Army checkpoint in the town of Tmerat, 50 miles west of Mosul, where scores of recruits routinely gather at an Iraqi Army base, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The recruits were probably the target and the bomb may have exploded prematurely, he said. Brig. Khalid Abdulsatar confirmed that nine had been killed and eight injured.

United States military pressure coupled with a change of allegiances by Sunni insurgents and a cease-fire by Shiite militias in southern and central Iraq has pushed remaining insurgents north to Mosul, US and Iraqi officials say. The city of two million has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent months and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki recently promised a “decisive battle” with insurgents there after 45 civilians were killed a month ago when a building was blown up in a Mosul neighborhood.

In northern Iraq, fighting continued for a fifth day as Turkish forces attacked P.K.K. rebel bases, while the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad condemned the incursion and, in a statement, demanded its immediate halt.

So, now U.S. troops are in the midst of a civil war and an expanding regional conflict.

Turkey's current military offensive inside northern Iraq has touched off a crisis - one to which several other players in the region have contributed.

Although the ultimate responsibility for ending this crisis falls on Turkey, all of the others, including the United States, must do their part to prevent a larger regional conflagration.

Turkey's ostensible reason for sending 10,000 troops into the mountainous north of Iraq is to punish the separatist guerrilla group known as the PKK for its terrorist operations and attacks on Turkish soldiers inside Turkey.

However, the Kurdish Regional Government in the north of Iraq has charged that Turkey has an ulterior motive: to destabilize that relatively peaceful and prosperous area.

Ah, the sound of silence.