A pox on both their houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. A pox on both their parties, Democrats and Republicans. A pox on them for once again trotting Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before their committees and pretending that it mattered.

Here’s the most important thing to know about the puppet show that took place in Washington Tuesday: Maybe there’s been some progress in Iraq since last September. Maybe it’s ephemeral. Either way, it won’t change a thing.

The Iraq war is going to continue; progress has been “significant but uneven,” Gen. Petraeus said, and troop reductions should be put on hold after July, when the last of 30,000 “surged” troops go home. Nobody’s coming home any sooner than scheduled, at least not alive.

Billions more dollars will be spent there, almost half a billion a day. The same old back-and-forth will continue: Victory, defeat, progress, troubles, concerns, waste, fraud, cronyism, corruption.

And not a blessed thing is going to change.

Congress doesn’t have the guts to end this war, not with an election coming up in November, not if it means legislators might lose their jobs. Nobody’s talking about cutting off funds for the war, not this time. They tried that after Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified in September. They failed.

Some 245 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since then, and another $100 billion has been spent. This time, they’re not even going to try to stop the war. This time it was all for show.

And what a show it was. There was the general in his four stars and ribbon-bedecked Class A uniform. There were the members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees (the House committees will get their turn today). There were the photographers scrambling around, because all three of the potential next presidents of the United States would be among the questioners.

By virtue of his seniority, John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on Armed Services, was the first of the potential next presidents to speak. Mr. McCain has more riding on success in Iraq than even Gen. Petraeus does; naturally, he found great cause for optimism. Because of the surge of 30,000 extra U.S. troops and Gen. Petraeus’ counter-insurgency tactics, the senator said, “it is possible to talk with real hope and optimism about the future of Iraq and the outcome of our efforts there.”

Sure, it’s possible, if you’re willing to stay decades upon decades, break the Army, spend a trillion more dollars and do for Iraq what Iraq won’t do for itself. Say this for Sen. McCain: He may be hard-headed, he may get confused between Sunni and Shiite, but at least, on this, he’s been consistent.

New York Democrat Hillary Clinton, who’s lower on the seniority totem pole and had to wait her turn, was at first forthright: “I think it’s time to begin an orderly process of withdrawing our troops,” she said.

Then she got lost, as she often does, in wonkland, asking Mr. Crocker about the “status of forces” agreement between the United States and Iraq. She’s right on this issue, but why not show some passion? Why not say, “President Bush and Vice President Cheney have cut a private deal to keep the United States in Iraq indefinitely. Why shouldn’t the Congress and the people of the United States get a say on this?”

Illinois Democrat Barack Obama didn’t bring any passion, either, attempting (unsuccessfully) to get Mr. Crocker to define what “success” in Iraq might look like. Would a “sloppy, messy status quo” — similar to what exists now, only with 100,000 fewer U.S. troops — be good enough?

Mr. Crocker wouldn’t bite.

The war began with a terrific entry plan, one that ended five years ago today with the fall of Baghdad and the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Firdos Square. There was nothing after that, and now there’s no way out. Congress is waiting for the war to end itself and calling it leadership.