Opinion (Graham Allison): Will Iraq's Army show up?

PRESIDENT BUSH is sending an additional 21,000 American troops to match a promised 8,000 Iraqi soldiers to win the decisive battle of Baghdad. When one in every 1,000 inhabitants of a nation's capital city is being killed every other month, there is no question that the country is failing. The question is what chance the president's prescription has of success.

Those who have followed events in Iraq over the past year cannot avoid the feeling that this is déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once put it. Indeed, this is the third time in the past seven months that the president and his generals have identified rising sectarian violence in Baghdad as the problem and prescribed more American and Iraqi troops as the solution. As Iraq's national security adviser stated in October: "Baghdad is the core of the issue. It's Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad."

In each previous call-up, the American troops arrived and performed. In each previous case, the Iraqi Army units summoned were mostly no-shows. At the end of each previous quarter, the number of Baghdadis dying in sectarian attacks increased -- tripling over the six months to 17,310.

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