Bush's unaccountably upbeat Iraq speech.

What a dispirited, dispiriting speech President George W. Bush delivered this morning to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

One could argue that it would have been dishonest to deliver any other sort of speech, for few things are more dispiriting than this war, which has now gone on for a quarter-year longer than America's involvement in World War II. Yes, the war in Iraq is a very different war, but one would have thought—certainly we were told—it would be a lot shorter.

And President Bush made it very clear that this war is not nearly over.

The "surge" of 20,000 or so U.S. troops, which Bush announced two months ago, is still in "its early stage," he noted this morning. Fewer than half the reinforcements have arrived in Baghdad.

"Success will take months, not days or weeks," he said—the exact reverse of Vice President Dick Cheney's insouciant assurance on March 16, 2003, three days before the invasion, that the war would be over in "weeks rather than months."

In the meantime, Bush said, "there will be good days and there will be bad days"—the exact same words he used in a campaign speech in Pennsylvania on Oct. 7, 2004.

"Those on the ground," he said today, "are seeing some hopeful signs." But his itemization of those signs was hardly encouraging:

"The Iraqi government has completed the deployment of three Iraqi army brigades to the capital" and "has also lifted restrictions that once prevented … forces from going into … Sadr City." And: "American and Iraqi forces have established joint security stations … throughout Baghdad … helping Iraqis reclaim their neighborhoods from the terrorists and extremists."

Yet, significantly, he made no claims for the effect of these developments. According to a BBC poll released today, just 26 percent of Iraqis feel safe in their neighborhoods—down from 63 percent in 2005.

Bush said the Iraqis are "beginning to meet the benchmarks they had laid out for political reconciliation." Yet the claim pushes optimism beyond prudent boundaries.