If Mohammed won't come to the mountain.....

Let's redefine victory.

With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections.

The US is hoping the Iraqis will pass a budget which they've done before, and will reauthorize the US presence which they've done several times before.

The Iraqis doing the minimum to simply keep the state alive is now defined as progress.

“If we can show progress outside of the security sector alone, that will go a long way to demonstrate that we are in fact on a sustainable path to stability in Iraq,” the senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Demonstrate to whom?