As the seventh anniversary of the war in Iraq approaches, an odd dissonance has emerged: Washington is fighting over who should get credit for winning it -- at a time when the country seems to have tuned out the conflict completely.

Iraq's parliamentary elections last Sunday, which the White House hailed as "historic" and a "milestone," and Newsweek's recent cover, featuring President George W. Bush on the USS Abraham Lincoln and a "Victory at Last?" headline, serve as the backdrop for the debate, though it started earlier. Last month, Vice President Biden declared that Iraq could be "one of the great achievements of this administration." Pete Wehner, a former Bush White House official, took Biden and President Obama to task a couple of...