Death of a monster.(Abu Musab al-Zarqawi)

ON one banner day, news came that a U.S. air strike had killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and that Iraqis had agreed on consensus choices to head the defense and interior ministries. Supporters of the war are constantly looking for signs of a strategic turning point in Iraq, and some discern one in these events. Perhaps. In any event, the developments definitely provide an opening for President Bush to redouble our efforts before Iraq slides further into chaos, and before declining American popular support forecloses spending more blood or treasure there.

Zarqawi's death is particularly welcome because it comes at such a distressing time in Iraq. According to the Pentagon's report to Congress on Iraqi stability and security, attacks between February and May of this year were higher than in any comparable period over the last two years. Total casualties, including both Iraqis and Americans, are up. In March 2006, car bombs were at their highest level since October 2005. Sectarian violence is up since the attack on the Golden Mosque in February. All of this makes for a deteriorating security picture, while at the same time oil production and electricity generation are flat.

This is why, prior to the latest news, some hawks inside and outside the administration were beginning privately to use the D-word, defeat. That would be a strategic catastrophe for the United States and a political calamity for the Bush administration. Oddly, the U.S. government has not been giving the war a 100 percent effort, even though Bush shows every indication of understanding the stakes in Iraq. To take one example, which military writer Thomas X. Hammes pointed out the other day, the administration has long talked of creating 16 provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq--specialists in all the important areas of civil affairs who would assist Iraqis at the regional level. Such teams have been a success in Afghanistan, but only four have been created in Iraq.

When it comes to U.S. military strategy, it is not always clear whether the first priority is "clear, sweep, and hold"--i.e., sweeping insurgents out of a given area, then leaving enough American or Iraqi forces that they don't come back-or simply getting American troops off the streets and back into their bases. Sometimes the Bush administration gives the impression that, in light of the unpopularity of the war at the moment, it wants to tiptoe in Iraq, doing a bare minimum that might secure victory if everything breaks the right way. This may seem to minimize political risk, but it actually increases it. If things don't break the right way--and they often don't--it means courting defeat. And there is no unobtrusive, politically painless way to lose a war. People will notice.

The killing of Zarqawi and the completion of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government are a fortunate confluence that allows a new departure in Iraq, as Bush officials fully realize and the president's trip to Baghdad dramatized. The White House believes--correctly, in our view--that the portion of the American public that is persuadable ...