Newspapers throughout the world reflect anguish and uncertainty over the situation in Iraq one year after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime and in the wake of the growing violence and kidnapping of foreigners.
One of the leading US dailies pleads for clarity over the coalition's mission in Iraq, while an Israeli commentator sees parallels with his country's presence in Lebanon, which ended ignominiously.
Some Japanese papers believe that hostage-takers must never be appeased, despite the kidnapping of three of their nationals.
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What we need desperately in Iraq is a clear mission, a believable strategy for success, a morally viable exit plan and international involvement.
The New York Times - US
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The array of challenges the United States now faces in Iraq seems to have emerged almost overnight but is actually the accumulation of mistakes, miscalculations and missed opportunities since Saddam Hussein's government collapsed a year ago.
Iraq specialists quoted in The Washington Post - US
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We can never give in to the threats of hostage-takers.
Sankei Shimbun - Japan
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We can never succumb to this despicable threat. We must deal with it with a firm attitude.
Yomiuri Shimbun - Japan
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The United States has no options now that it has been proved that its political plan to propagate democracy has failed. The US plan has therefore reached its end, because US culture is a culture of war which the world does not need. Peace is humanity's only option.
Ukaz - Saudi Arabia
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The resemblance between our invasion of Lebanon and America's invasion of Iraq is amazing. We wanted to create a new order in Lebanon; they wanted to create a new order in Iraq. Within a short time, in both cases, the Shia had woken up and the invading armies became targets of attack. We pulled out without achieving a thing and Bush is still there, mired in a sea of blood from which no good will come. If I were him, I'd send Saddam Hussein back to Iraq - he would know how to sort this mess out in no time.
Commentator in Haaretz - Israel
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A year later, and Iraq, loyal to its brutal tradition, has sunk in rivers of blood, bitterness, hatred and paranoia. Who still remembers President Bush's vision of regional democracy that would begin in Baghdad and Ramallah and spread to the other Arab countries?
Commentator in Yediot Aharonot - Israel
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The Iraqis have discovered that the freedom the Americans introduced means humiliation, enslavement and the usurpation of Arab resources so that America can grow richer by starving and subduing the people.
Commentator in Kul Al-Arab - Israeli Arab
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Yes, Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, but Iraqis have discovered that one regime was replaced with one that is much worse, and that the American occupier and his allies are much worse than Saddam.
Al-Sinnarah - Israeli Arab
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Even if Iraq is not the US military's 'second Vietnam', it is still a frightening quagmire... anti-US sentiment in Iraq has reached a critical point, which is likely to give rise to a nationwide anti-occupation situation... America's self-invented 'liberator' image has collapsed just as the statue of Saddam did a year ago.
People's Daily - China
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George Bush has forced the leaders of the Arab world to fear not the fate of Saddam Hussein, but a large-scale Shia uprising and a civil war capable of spilling beyond the borders of Iraq... [The situation provides] a chance for Moscow's voice to be heeded by Washington... the opinion of Russia and its partners in the anti-war camp should be taken into account.
Commentators in Nezavisimaya Gazeta - Russia
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For power to be handed to the Iraqis in June, it must now first be taken from them. The resistance is growing because the Iraqis don't want to live under occupation. And no amount of military force will make them feel otherwise.
Krasnaya Zvezda - Russia
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With the insurgencies becoming more frequent and violent, the 'coalition of the willing' is proving to be a 'coalition of the wavering'... A year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the coalition no longer controls much in Iraq, which is starting to look like Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet occupation.
Liberation - France
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The Americans have failed to re-establish security for property and people throughout the country, and security is the minimum service that any population expects of the state. Without security, freedom will always remain an empty word in Iraq.
Le Figaro - France
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Spain has to make an urgent reassessment of its military presence in Iraq. One part of the Plus Ultra Brigade has become isolated in Najaf and other places. Spanish troops did not go there to fight or come under siege from a population which rejects them, but to help in reconstruction.
El Pais - Spain
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The situation in Iraq is getting increasingly explosive. Shia and Sunni rebels are uniting their forces... a clear challenge to the occupying forces, pushing the conflict towards a new, unpredictable situation. The war in Iraq is copying, in other ways, the worst characteristics of other conflicts. As in Chechnya, the first kidnappings of foreigners have emerged.
ABC - Spain
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The pictures of the dead and injured are as striking as those of the abducted foreigners. But we must not forget this: during Saddam's terror there were no cameras to capture the images of the dead, the tortured and the mutilated... Nobody can really want the Americans to hand the country over to the Iraqis and come home. The upshot would be unimaginable, bloody chaos, worse than anything that we are currently having to watch.
Commentary in Bild-Zeitung - Germany
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Schroeder did his country a service by not sending Germany to the front line in Iraq in the alleged war against terror.. So that there is no misunderstanding: it is important for Germany to be friends with the Americans. But for this very reason, it could also be important not to be friends with George W Bush.
Commentary in Bild am Sonntag - Germany
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The invasion of Iraq is still suffering from the error that existed at its birth: There is no clear formula for how the country can live in peace. Prophesies that Iraq would be ungovernable seem now to be coming true.
Commentary in Sueddeutsche Zeitung - Germany
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They won the war. But... have lost the peace in Iraq. The worst thing is that each day takes the country even further away from the vision that allegedly brought the "coalition of the willing" into the country.
Commentary in Berliner Zeitung - Germany
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The US-led coalition has lost the peace in Iraq - if it ever existed and was not just self-delusion. The second war - following the first, which began a year ago and seemed to have ended with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - has only just begun.
Commentator in Frankfurter Rundschau
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The peace was lost from day one when Baghdad was taken over by looters, robbers and murderers.
Commentary in Der Standard - Austria
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