American patience with the war in Iraq is wearing thin. It's no longer just liberal blue-staters fed up with the Bush administration's foreign policy, or Republican members of Congress annoyed at this albatross during campaign season. The administration itself seems to be growing impatient with the situation in Iraq -- especially the unwillingness or inability of the government in Baghdad to put an end to sectarian violence.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was worried enough to call the White House on Monday to check on his job security. According to presidential spokesman Tony Snow, the Iraqi leader wanted to know whether there was any truth to the rumor that he would be replaced soon if things didn't turn around. President Bush reportedly offered his support. A word of caution to al-Maliki: If Bush told you you're doing "a heck of a job," you should be worried.

Whatever was said, Bush's tone must have made an impression. On Tuesday, al-Maliki's government dismissed the two most senior police commanders from their posts. It's well known that members of the police forces moonlight as Shiite death squads fomenting much of the ethnic strife in Iraq. The purge of the leadership is a welcome step, but only one of many that must be taken by the Iraqis to prevent full-blown civil war.

Yet the situation is fraught because the United States is only one of al-Maliki's overseers. To survive politically, he also needs to keep Muqtada al-Sadr happy. This is no easy balancing act. Al-Sadr is the anti-American cleric who controls a faction of Shiite parliamentarians who back al-Maliki, as well as the al-Mahdi army. Civil war is all but inevitable if such private armies are allowed to flourish. Tensions between Baghdad and Washington over al-Sadr were on full display Wednesday, after U.S. forces grudgingly released one of his senior aides at the government's request.

The episode will only feed U.S. commanders' exasperation at getting involved in what looks increasingly like a civil war.

Historian and Los Angeles Times columnist Niall Ferguson has observed that this country's most successful occupations have been its longest, in Germany and Japan. But al-Maliki is right to be worried. Unless things start changing, even the staunchest neocons in Washington may start looking for the exits.

(This editorial originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.)