As people in Washington have been saying for weeks now, the whole town is waiting with bated breath for September's Iraq-war progress report from General David Petraeus. Depending on what it says, that report will either serve as a short-term bulwark against Democratic calls for withdrawal or will make withdrawal a politically unstoppable force.

But it may be that an accompanying assessment of Iraq's political scene, to be delivered by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, will actually prove to be the more significant one -- in a way that could give a crucial political boost to the antiwar cause.

Here's why: Some recent comments Crocker made to a reporter that have gone almost entirely unnoticed suggest that he is on the verge of concluding in his report that the Iraqi political scene is flatlining and that there's really no hope for political reconciliation. And if he does say this come September, it would likely undercut Petraeus's expected plea for more time to prosecute the surge. It would also give antiwar critics much more ammo to pressure wavering Republicans in Congress into abandoning Bush and the war.

The evidence that Crocker may say as much in his report can be found buried in Joe Klein's recent article in Time magazine about Iraq.

When Klein met up with Crocker in Iraq, he found the Ambassador in something of a frustrated mood, thanks to Maliki:

The Iraqi government is irresolute to the point of near collapse. It is nowhere near to figuring out how to make a political deal amongst the contending parties that might lead to stability. "All this attention on benchmarks has actually been bad for the process," Ambassador Crocker says. "We've wasted so much time and energy on getting a hydrocarbon law" — that is, a law to divide oil profits amongst the ethnic and religious parties, likely to be approved soon — "but it has very little to do with getting a functioning government in place." The truth is, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government is puttering along, happily dependent on the U.S. "There are no consequences for them when they screw up," Crocker says. "Whatever's wrong, we take care of it."

Recall that Crocker's predecessor, Zalmay Khalilzad, lauded the hydrocarbon law -- which doesn't solve the problem of oil-revenue distribution -- as a "significant achievement for Iraqis' national reconciliation." For Crocker to say, publicly, that the hydrocarbon law is a waste because the Maliki government is too dysfunctional is a huge admission. Not only does the Bush administration lose a favorite good-news talking point, but Crocker is showing the back of his hand to the government he has to interact with every day.

What's more, Crocker's denouncement of the so-called "benchmarks" announced by President Bush in January is predicated on their toothlessness -- essentially the line of Democratic war critics. If that's a taste of what Crocker will tell Congress in his September report, the antiwar faction in congress will be very pleased.

Crocker is not used to being listened to by the press or by Maliki, and indeed, it can't be much fun to be the chief diplomat in Baghdad. You wake up in the morning and things explode around you in the Green Zone. You spend your day haggling with recalcitrant Iraqi politicians and fending off briefing requests from panicked officials at the White House. And even though you're only the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, charged with delivering your own progress report to Congress in September on the political aspects of the surge, the only one reporters dropping into Baghdad want to interview is Petraeus, Petraeus, Petraeus.

But if come September his report is anything like his comment to Klein, he suddenly might find himself with a far larger audience than he ever thought possible.