Everybody has already taken their whacks at today's Times Op ed by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, which argued that we "just might win" the war and that the political debate in Washington is "surreal" and out of touch with the progress being made there.

But here's an amusing postscript to this whole saga. It turns out that this assessment by O'Hanlon today is in some key ways strikingly at odds with...

...the Brookings Institution's own Iraq Index, a meticulous and regularly updated compilation of stats designed to paint as realistic a portrait as possible of the situation on the ground.

And guess who oversees the Brookings Iraq Index?

Yup -- it's overseen by Michael O'Hanlon.

More after the jump.

Here's the conclusion of Brookings' latest assessment, from July 26, quoted in full:

JULY 23, 2007- With what promised to be a pivotal summer now more than half over, the situation in Iraq remains tenuous at best. Even with all surge forces in place and operational, the modest progress made in the security sphere thus far has not had the hoped-for subsequent influence on the political and economic sectors. Adding to the pressure is the steadily increasing demands stateside for a change in strategy. Indeed, the “political clocks” in Washington and Baghdad are perhaps farther apart today than they have ever been.

From a security standpoint, having the full allotment of surge troops in theater has allowed for intensified coalition operations in and around Baghdad aimed at rooting out militants from their sanctuaries. Initial reports indicate that these have led to a decrease in the levels of violence in these areas. However, violence nationwide has failed to improve measurably over the past 2-plus months, with a resilient enemy increasingly turning its focus to softer targets outside the scope of the surge. And while the number of internally displaced persons has declined, it has done so not as a result of security improvements but because there are fewer places for Iraqis to run with a number of provinces unable to accept any more refugees. In assessing the overall sentiment of the Iraqi people recently, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker summed it up in one word: fear.

Politically, there has yet to be significant progress in the legislation of any of the critical benchmark laws. This has been made exceedingly more difficult with recent boycotts of the government by both the Shiite officials loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr and the largest Sunni bloc, the National Accord Front. Though both have now agreed to return their members to parliament after weeks of abstention, neither has resumed participation at the cabinet level, leaving 13 of the 38 Iraqi cabinet positions vacant. With Kurdish lawmakers denouncing the most recently proposed oil revenue sharing law and the National Accord Front threatening to resume its boycott, it is difficult to see how any measurable political progress will take place before the all-important September update from Ambassador Crocker and commanding General David Petraeus.

Economically, “stagnation” continues to be the key word. The precarious security situation has continued to stymie any significant improvement of such macro indicators as unemployment, GDP and inflation. Fuel production fluctuates from week-to-week with insurgent attacks on infrastructure and suspected widespread corruption causing the average Iraqi to endure interminable lines to obtain scant amounts gasoline and propane. In addition, the availability of electricity has deteriorated over the past couple of months with Ambassador Crocker recently stating that the average person in Baghdad can count on only one or two hours of electricity per day.

So in the low-profile precincts of Brookings' own Iraq Index, O'Hanlon is quietly concluding that the "surge" has basically failed to live up to expectations. His Iraq Index assesses the situation in language that's basically identical to that which you hear from Democrats calling for withdrawal in Washington.

Yet writing in the far more public forum of The Times Op ed page today, O'Hanlon says the debate in D.C. is "surreal" because "the administration’s critics...seem unaware of the significant changes taking place." And he concludes that for now, "things look much better than before."

Anyone care to explain the disparity here?