Two surges are competing to upend President Bush's policy on Iraq, after a month in which nothing has gone well for it. The military surge of US troops he ordered earlier this year against the occupying coalition's enemies and in defence of the weak Iraqi government has been fully in effect for only a few weeks.
It is far from achieving the security goals he set and has precious little time to do so before the US army chief in Iraq delivers a verdict on it in September. But even that tight timetable has now been upset by a surge of popular feeling in the US against the war as a result of heightened military casualties in the campaign. This has now led sections of the congressional Republican Party to support a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq in defiance of the White House.
Suddenly Mr Bush has to contemplate the awful prospect for him of agreeing such a timetable, which he has previously said amounts to accepting a humiliating defeat. His speech yesterday tried to rally Republicans in Congress by reminding them that he has a timetable of his own for Iraq. The military surge is only sustainable until next spring at the latest. By that time Mr Bush had hoped it would have rolled back resistance and given the Iraqi government the chance to deliver on specified reforms and prepare itself for self-rule following a US redeployment to a series of permanent bases there.
This strategy is now imperilled by the disintegration of Mr Bush's political base and of popular support for the war, as well as the failure to deliver on his military and political objectives in Iraq. He will not be able to tough out or fudge the issue before he departs after next year's elections, thereby leaving his (presumably Democratic) successor to deal with the Iraqi quagmire. He will have to confront mounting popular and political pressure for withdrawal and also the need to fully engage Iraq's neighbours and international diplomacy. This was roughly the formula proposed by the cross-party Iraq Study Group last November, but its advice was rejected by Mr Bush in favour of the surge policy and is probably irretrievable as a cross-party initiative with elections looming.
The sheer scale of this disaster must be borne continually in mind. If there is no longer the political will to continue the ill-conceived and badly-executed US operation in Iraq, the regional consequences could be profound. The US ambassador in Iraq warns of a deepening civil war, the prime minister talks of possible regional wars as his country implodes and neighbours intervene, while ordinary Iraqis see their state disintegrate into lawlessness, sectarian factionalism and an utter lack of everyday security.
The US presence itself causes much of this trouble, making it more part of the problem than the solution. Its departure must be accompanied by a determined international effort to contain the damage. This should involve the United Nations, European and Middle Eastern states. They will all suffer if the vacuum left by Mr Bush's disastrous failure is filled by an even more intense set of conflicts in the region.