Iraq

By John Hannah

In today's Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens rises to the defense of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Toward the article's close, Stephens writes that:

It would be  ... useful if some of Mr. Karzai's more acerbic Western critics could ask themselves why matters went abruptly south in Afghanistan after several years in which they had gone swimmingly well under Mr. Karzai. ... The answer has a lot less to do with Mr. Karzai's performance than with NATO.

Stephens's basic point is worth bearing in mind. Ever since last year's presidential campaign, there's been an unfortunate tendency to assess America's Afghan campaign as one long, steady downward spiral to disaster. "Eight years of drift," according to Obama administration officials seeking to explain their lengthy deliberations over strategy and troop numbers. But, as Stephens suggests, the reality is a good deal more complex. The fact is that, after a period of genuine progress following the Taliban's removal in late 2001, the situation in Afghanistan only began to deteriorate markedly between 2005 and 2006. Suicide attacks quintupled that year. Remotely detonated bombs more than doubled. Insurgent attacks nearly tripled. And the trends have steadily worsened every year since. The question is why? What changed in that time period that might help account for the sharp decline in America's war fortunes?

I certainly don't have an exhaustive answer, but I do have a few ideas that merit consideration:

1. Zalmay Khalilzad left Afghanistan  

Khalilzad served as President Bush's special envoy for Afghanistan from the country's liberation in 2001 until 2003. In 2003, he became U.S. ambassador. Khalilzad had an extraordinary relationship with Karzai, spending hours alone with him on a daily basis -- mentoring, advising, reassuring, hectoring (the latter only in private). The relationship allowed Khalilzad to succeed, far more often than not, in getting Karzai to do the right thing. Karzai had enormous confidence in Khalilzad -- and, more importantly, in the unflinching U.S. support that was manifested in Khalilzad's role.

Khalizad left Afghanistan in the summer of 2005. Since then, no other U.S. official has come close to replicating his relationship with Karzai. On the contrary, we've seen an ever-widening breach of trust and confidence between Karzai and the United States, bottoming out this spring when the Obama administration let it be known that it was "desperately searching" for an alternative to Karzai. Causal lines are always hard to draw, but it's difficult not to discern a significant connection between the end of Khalilzad's tenure in Kabul and the mounting frustrations with Karzai's performance in Washington. At a minimum, this suggests that now that Karzai's second term is a done deal, the Obama administration needs urgently to find a way to rebuild its badly tattered relationship with him. Can that be done with the people currently in charge of Afghan policy? That's a tough question, but it needs to be asked.  

2. NATO assumed overall command for the Afghan mission from the United States.

Most importantly, NATO took over operations in southern Afghanistan, the heart of the Taliban insurgency, in mid-2006. Karzai and the Afghans fretted throughout 2005 about the planned handover to NATO, urging the U.S. not to follow through. Despite repeated assurances from Washington, the Afghans palpably feared that the transition to NATO reflected the start of America's ultimate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Psychologically, this perception of declining U.S. commitment almost certainly had the dual effect of dangerously demoralizing the Afghan government and people (resulting in counter-productive hedging behavior), while emboldening the Taliban.

Similarly, the Pakistani government -- believing the United States to be once again headed for the Afghan exits -- was encouraged even further in its double game of maintaining an "option" for returning a friendly Taliban to power in Kabul.

Militarily, the shift to NATO, particularly in the south, undeniably resulted in a significant loss of combat effectiveness on perhaps the war's most important front. While America's British, Dutch, and Canadian allies fought valiantly in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, they were no match -- frequently by their own admission -- for the extraordinary fighting skills of their U.S. counterparts.  With only some exaggeration, a senior Afghan official once told President Bush that 800 U.S. troops had generated a greater sense of security and well-being among the population in Helmand than 8,000 NATO forces.

Finally, at an administrative level, putting the 26-member alliance in charge made a hash of command and control in the Afghan theater, undermining severely the unity of military and civilian effort that is essential to successful warfare, especially counter-insurgency operations.

Whatever the merits of ramping up NATO's role -- e.g., the importance of multilateralism; the need to divert greater U.S. attention and resources to the deteriorating situation in Iraq -- the benefits, in retrospect, have not been worth the costs in terms of advancing U.S. war aims. Since late 2008, the United States has been engaged in a delicate effort to re-balance the relationship between America and NATO, and to once again take ownership of the Afghan war in a much more aggressive way. The Obama administration's decisions on increasing troop numbers, as well as changes that have already been made in command and control arrangements in Afghanistan, are a crucial part of that essential return to full-blown U.S. leadership of the war effort.

3. America's failure to hold Pakistan to account for its support of the Taliban became fully manifested.

I vividly recall that from 2003 onward, Zal Khalilzad repeatedly tried to warn U.S. officials about the need for a strategy that would aggressively counter Pakistani efforts to resurrect the defeated Taliban. President Karzai and his security advisors harped constantly on the same issue. Yet it was all to no avail. Special Afghan pleading, some officials complained. The Musharraf government is already under enough pressure assisting our efforts to kill and capture al Qaeda operatives, others said. Whatever the excuses, far, far too little was done. As a result, by 2005-2006 the Taliban, as a serious insurgent force, began coming back with a vengeance. Even then, Washington was slow to respond in developing a serious policy to address Pakistan's double-dealing. Not until 2007-2008 did talk get serious about dramatically expanding operations to target Taliban leaders and disrupt their operations in Pakistan. It was only at this point that the United States began putting together a comprehensive diplomatic, economic, and military plan designed to pressure and empower the Pakistani government to act seriously against the Taliban monster it had encouraged along the Afghan border. To its great credit, the Obama administration has expanded and fully resourced this effort with Pakistan in ways that, at long last, are beginning to show signs of tentative progress.

There are, no doubt, a host of other causes that contributed to the war's downward spiral. But the larger point is that the United States did enjoy a significant period after the Taliban's downfall when real progress was being made. The causes of that success and why things began going badly need to be studied closely. The bottom line is that the deterioration of recent years was not inevitable. Rather, it resulted from real shifts -- and failures -- of policy, many of which are subject to U.S. control, influence and correction.

It's, of course, true that the costs the U.S. may need to endure now in correcting past mistakes will almost certainly be higher than if we'd gotten it right the first time. But not nearly as high as the costs of allowing the Taliban to return to power, allied with al Qaeda, with its sights firmly set on taking over a nuclear-armed Pakistan.      

David McNew/Getty Images

By Kori Schake

The Iraqi Parliament has passed a law that will allow elections to proceed in January, and on terms that will make Iraqi politicians more accountable to Iraqi voters and foster continued stabilization of the Iraqi political landscape. This is a huge step forward in the democratization of Iraq; what a pity our own government sees it largely in terms of facilitating our withdrawal from the country.

The United Nations had said last Thursday was the deadline for a law to be passed if elections were to remain on schedule. Many Iraq watchers feared once the deadline had been breached, no law would be forthcoming and elections indefinitely postponed. Some even argued Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was seeking to derail an election law to remain in power in a "soft coup."  But the Parliament acted and Faraj al-Haidari, the head of Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission, has now confirmed to the Associated Press that the election will be held within a week of the original Jan. 16 date (the Constitution requires only that national elections be held in January).

Two thorny issues required solutions before the law could be passed: how to account for changing demographics in Kirkuk, and whether voters would cast ballots for parties or individuals. Both came to solutions that strengthen democracy in Iraq.

Kirkuk is a northern city from which Kurdish residents were purged during Saddam Hussein's rule. They have returned in large numbers since. Kurdish leaders explain the influx as displaced people returning to their homes.  Others, especially local Turkmen and Arabs, suspect Kurds are "creating facts on the ground" for an eventual claim on Kirkuk's oil, should they secede from Iraq. There has not been a census to establish voter roles, increasing suspicions. But Iraqi legislators found a principled compromise: Kirkuk will be treated just like all other places, with a review only in the event of a large voter increase. There will be no seats assigned to sectarian communities (a proposition that had figured prominently in the negotiations). Both Kurds and Arabs are claiming victory, which has to be a good sign.

Many successful democracies have "closed list" elections, where voters cast their ballots for a political party rather than a candidate. Germany, for example, has a two ballot system, the first for an individual candidate, the second for a party to which additional seats will be allotted. But in countries with ethnic or sectarian divides, such as Iraq, this structure of voting deepens divisions rather than encouraging candidates to broaden their political appeal.

The Iraqi Parliament chose open lists so voters choose candidates rather than parties. Significant credit for this outcome goes to Grand Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq's central religious figure, who supported this tighter accountability. His beneficial shaping of the Iraqi political landscape from its margins stands in stark contrast to the dictatorship of Ayatollahs in Iran. Iraqi voters can decide whether party standard bearers merit office, weakening parties and rewarding good governance at the local level. An open list will likely extend the time of government formation, but it is crucial in helping Iraq's nascent democracy get beyond sectarian voting blocs an into a more fluid and policy-based governing coalition.

When I was in Iraq a few weeks ago, it was striking how proud Iraqis are to have held free and fair elections, especially the Jan. 2009 provincial elections in which incumbents were tossed out in large numbers. Nearly all mention the contrast to Iran's elections last summer and Afghanistan's this fall. Passage of the election law and the positive political dynamic that has Iraqis opting in to political wrangling as the means of addressing their disputes bodes very well for Iraq's future.

What is less clear is whether the Obama administration understands the value of a long-term strategic partnership with a democratic Iraq that will be the lodestar of representative government in the Middle East. On the basis statements made by the president and Ambassador Hill, I believe they do not. Instead of playing the end game of our military presence in Iraq in ways that stabilize Iraq and make us a valuable long-term partner, the administration seems only to see the value of getting out of Iraq.

President Obama said, "This agreement advances the political progress that can bring lasting peace and unity to Iraq and allow for the orderly and responsible transition of American combat troops out of Iraq by next September." Ambassador Hill went even further in emphasizing the importance of the election law for our timetable. "What is important is that with the election law, we are very much on schedule for the drawdown," Hill said. This denigrates the importance of Iraq's achievement for Iraqis.

Emphasizing the president's timeline for drawdown does not stabilize Iraq's political landscape. It was important for Iraqis that we meet our obligations in the Security Agreement President Bush signed in 2008. Withdrawing from the cities last June confirmed for Iraqis we respect their sovereignty and abide by our obligations to them. But the bombings of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry in August, and the bombings of the Iraqi Interior and Justice Ministries in October have given many Iraqis pause to reconsider whether their security forces can handle the threats the enemies of a successful Iraq pose. Now is a time to reassure Iraqis we will support them as they want to be supported, and will be a partner in their long term success.

The September 2010 end of combat operations is an American deadline, committed to by President Obama but not obligated in any agreement with Iraqis. Conditions in Iraq should be the basis for determining the pace of our drawdown, but the president's comments today reinforce yet again his is a timeline not a conditions-based withdrawal. In a delicate political season for Iraqis, our government should be reinforcing Iraq's success, not subordinating it to the president's political convenience.

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images

By John Hannah

There are some noteworthy developments this past week on the Iraq front that merit attention. First, after Sunday's horrible bombings in Baghdad, President Obama immediately phoned Prime Minister Maliki and President Talabani to offer condolences and reaffirm U.S. support. The president also issued a strong statement condemning the attacks and making clear that "America will stand with Iraq's people and government as a close friend and partner as Iraqis prepare for elections early next year, continue to take responsibility for their future, and build greater peace and opportunity. Together, we will continue to work for lasting security, dignity, and justice."

This response from the Obama administration was in stark contrast to two months ago, when twin suicide truck bombs hit the Iraqi Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs, killing at least 100 people and injuring hundreds more. The president was largely missing in action on that occasion -- no phone calls, no statement. Instead, Vice President Biden spoke to Maliki and issued a one-sentence readout of the call.

Iraq's heightened profile on the president's radar screen is only to be applauded. With more than 100,000 American combat troops still in country, and Iraq's success by no means a foregone conclusion, it's entirely fitting that the commander-in-chief remain intensely focused on the situation there. With just this minor investment in time and political capital, Obama has reminded our soldiers, our enemies, and -- perhaps most importantly -- the Iraqi people, themselves, of America's resolve to remain engaged and to help Iraqis consolidate their political, economic and security gains. For our Iraqi allies, it's hard to over-estimate the reassurance provided by this kind of steady determination from the president of the United States.

Also noteworthy in this respect was Obama's public remarks during his Oct. 20 Oval Office meeting with Maliki. True, the president opened with a long salvo on Afghanistan that left the Iraqis somewhat miffed. But he recovered with his first meaningful invocation of the "d" word as applied to the Iraqi context. And not just once, but on three occasions:

We have seen in the last several months a consolidation of a commitment to democratic politics inside Iraq. ... I just want to ... reemphasize my administration's full support for all the steps that can be taken so that Iraq can not only be a secure place and a democratic country, but also a place where people can do business, people can work, families can make a living, and children are well educated. And that broader sense of a U.S. relationship with a democratic Iraq is one that I think all of us are confident we can now achieve." (emphasis added) 

During his campaign, as well as during the first months of his administration, the president's default position was to talk Iraq down, and to leave the impression that America's only stake in the country was to wash our hands of it as soon as possible. That now seems to be changing, as the administration begins to realize that America's strategic interests could in fact be reasonably well served by having a potentially very prosperous, very powerful democratic friend in what historically has been one of the Arab/Muslim world's most influential countries. Moreover, this can be achieved through a relatively modest dedication of additional political, economic, and security resources -- even as U.S. forces continue to withdraw from Iraq and America's combat role dramatically diminishes.

If pursued, the president's shifting paradigm on Iraq and its possible role in American strategy in the Middle East is a most welcome development that deserves encouragement and support from both sides of the political aisle.

TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

By Peter Feaver

Professor Andy Bacevich, a prolific critic of American foreign policy, has proposed an intriguing grand strategy for the conflict formerly called the war on terror: let's approach the war on terror as if it were another Cold War. Since Andy knows first-hand the personal tragedy of these wars -- his son died while serving in the Army in Iraq -- his powerful voice of moral authority garners a respectful audience every time he speaks on the subject.

I am sympathetic to the Cold War frame and offered it as a useful way for thinking about the problem of terrorism almost exactly 8 years ago, as did other commentators -- notably, Eliot Cohen. We thought that the framework was a useful antidote to the pre-9/11 mindset which viewed terrorism narrowly through the lens of law enforcement and thus limited policymakers only to a very restricted set of law enforcement tools. The broader Cold War frame incorporated all of the law enforcement tools, plus additional ones. I don't remember Andy (whom I consider to be a friend and long-time debating partner) being persuaded by our reasoning then; I rather recall him thinking it would lead to what he calls American "militarism." But evidently he has come around to our point of view now.

In so doing, he joins President Bush, who used that frame in his 2006 National Security Strategy and his follow-on National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. The three pillars Andy highlights would all produce emphatic head-nodding from any Bush administration alum. Pursue decapitation, meaning tracking and killing the terrorist leaders? Of course, and the Bush administration dramatically ramped up these efforts. Pursue containment, meaning improving law enforcement, tracking vigorously international financial transactions and weapons transfers?  Absolutely, and the Bush administration was very innovative in these areas. Compete with the jihadis on both a material and an ideological terrain? Again, this was a centerpiece of the Bush administration effort.

Even Andy's eloquent peroration -- "The upshot is that by modifying the way we live -- attending to pressing issues of poverty, injustice, exploitation of women and the global environmental crisis -- we might through our example induce the people of the Islamic world to consider modifying the way they live." -- reads like one of President Bush's speeches. If a Bush speechwriter were penning it, he might throw in a reference or two touting No Child Left Behind, the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, the Malaria Initiative, the efforts in women's education, and the increased funding for renewable energy, all of which (and more) were viewed in much the same way Andy is suggesting here: part of an all-elements-of-national-power comprehensive approach to combating terrorism at both the material and ideological levels.

Now I recognize that many people, chief among them the current administration, would all argue that the Bush administration should have done even more on all of those dimensions. But the strategic pillars Andy recommends did comprise important parts of the Bush strategy and, on each of these dimensions, the Obama team has been trying to do the same thing, only harder, faster, and better.

Where he departs from what might be considered Bush/Obama orthodoxy is when Andy suggests that we can accomplish all of this even better if only we would abandon the fight in Afghanistan and also in Iraq (the Iraq point is implicit in his most recent articulation, but explicit elsewhere in Andy's writings). That is the novel bit of his proposal: the notion that the Cold War frame works better if only we would get out of Afghanistan (and Iraq). That was not President Bush's view and, so far at least with respect to Afghanistan, that is not what President Obama has embraced.

Nor does it follow inexorably from the Cold War frame. One can view the larger conflict as a Cold War, and still believe it is essential to prevail in theater combat in Afghanistan. One can even argue, as McChrystal, Petraeus, Bush, and Obama have, that prevailing in Afghanistan is an important -- Obama used to call it a necessary -- step in prevailing in that larger contest. Andy's new spin on grand strategy is in promising that we have a better shot at winning the larger contest if only we embrace the inevitability of defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the sooner the better.

It is a very enticing vision, but it rests on some hazy premises. Yes, we would prefer to be able to whack the terrorists from afar and do so in a fashion in which no civilians die. But who will give us the pin-point intelligence (and so much more of it than we are getting now), after we have abandoned our erstwhile allies in Afghanistan and Iraq? How often will the terrorist leaders we are hunting show up within range of assault helicopters away from civilian population centers, thus allowing us to do the Delta Force strikes Andy favors rather than the Predator strikes we have increasingly relied upon?  How can we be sure that our departure will encourage the Muslim world to see the terrorists as offering only a "retrograde version of Islam" and not, in fact, as the "stronger horse" that has defeated its second great superpower?

As long as one elides over these tough questions, one can stay focused on this promise that we can have it all and for less sacrifice, more gain for less pain, more security for less security operations. Such a vision is far more enticing than McChrystal's somber and stark catalogue of the costs entailed in pursuing success, or the similarly painstaking evaluation of the alternatives that leaves Steve Biddle endorsing a surge in Afghanistan.

Indeed, Andy's message is so enticing, I would be surprised if we don't hear this chorus growing. The question is: Will President Obama join it?

By Peter Feaver

It does not look like the world will wait while we sort out healthcare. On the contrary, it is looking more and more like gut-check time for our wartime Commander-in-Chief. He is facing serious challenges in both of his major military conflicts, Iraq and Afghanistan, and very ominous clouds on a third front, Iran. I think in his first 8 months or so in office President Obama has surpassed the gloomiest predictions about how he would handle the portion of the job for which he had the least preparation. But the next couple months will really test his mettle.

The challenge on the Iraqi front is multifaceted, but the aspect that may be most critical will be how he deals with Iraqi over-confidence. The recent bombings underscore that it is woefully premature to declare "mission accomplished" in the counter-insurgency. The 2007 surge strategy reversed the trajectory in Iraq, but there is still a long way to go. Perhaps the phased withdrawal laid out under the Status of Forces agreement will be gradual enough to meet President Obama's cleverly-formulated goal of "leaving Iraq more responsibly than we went into Iraq." But ever since we transferred sovereignty to Iraqi authorities in 2005, a persistent pattern has emerged: Iraqis have been over-confident in their ability to govern and provide security and have been underwhelming in their delivery of the same. They have done well where U.S. forces have been well-aligned, well-resourced, and well-led. They have done much less well in other areas. Unfortunately, U.S. leverage over the Iraqis is diminishing on an almost daily basis and the faster we pull out the faster our leverage erodes.

This is a challenge to Obama because the facts on the ground in Iraq may require that he resist the political instincts he has honed in a domestic context, all of which will be pushing him to get out of Iraq as fast as the logistics train will let him.

The domestic context is also a critical factor in the Afghanistan challenge. As a recent Washington Post poll makes clear, public support for the Afghan mission is starting to wobble. There is even a slim majority giving the negative answer on the "is it worth it" question. I have never liked that question because it involves almost hopelessly complex and incommensurate judgments. From a policy point of view, what matters the most is the public's stomach for continuing the fight and I do not believe that the "worth it" question taps into that well. The poll is somewhat more encouraging on the dimension that the Gelpi-Feaver-Reifler model identifies as key: optimism about eventual success. The public shows continued optimism on that score and I believe that translates into a reservoir of public support that President Obama can tap.

The challenge for Obama is that his military advisors and independent experts may believe that eventual success requires the commitment of additional troops and resources to Afghanistan. And on the question of more troops, the recent poll makes clear, Obama does not have a reservoir of support -- indeed, the numbers are running nearly 2-to-1 for reducing rather than increasing troops. President Obama could shift those numbers, if he came to believe that an increase was necessary and if he committed the political capital and the bully pulpit to the job. But he would be dealing primarily with skeptics within his party. He enjoys robust support from across the aisle. His problem is with the majority opinion of his own party. At a time when he is facing a within-party backlash over health care, can he also do what it takes to bring his partisan troops in line?  As Will Inboden points out, the great presidents with which he likes to compare himself managed this tricky maneuver; the not-so-great ones he does not want to emulate did not.

The third great Commander-in-Chief challenge is still on the horizon and not (yet) predominantly military in form: Iran. Over the next couple months, the deadlines President Obama himself set for his Iran policy will come due. By mid-September, we will see whether the Iranians respond meaningfully to the offer of direct negotiations. By the end of the year, President Obama has promised to reassess whether this gambit has yielded results. At best, the Israelis may be on a similar clock; at worst, their clock may be ticking even faster. That means that within a few short months, at a time when both Iraq and even more probably Afghanistan will be constituting grave military challenges, President Obama will have a fateful military decision to make concerning Iran. If the diplomatic track does not produce results, and if he chooses to eschew the military option, he still will face the daunting challenge of persuading the Israelis to eschew the military option.

The last several weeks have marked a consequential chapter in how historians will evaluate President Obama's domestic legacy. The next several months could be an equally consequential chapter for how historians will evaluate him as Commander in Chief. For all of our sakes, I hope he performs well.

By Christian Brose

Consider this for a moment from today's New York Times:

Insurgents struck at the heart of the Iraqi government on Wednesday in two huge and deadly bombings that exposed a new vulnerability after Americans ceded control for security here on June 30. Nearby American soldiers stood by helplessly -- despite the needs of hundreds of wounded lying among the dead -- waiting for a request for assistance from Iraqi officials that apparently never came.

"As much as we want to come, we have to wait to be asked now," said an American officer who arrived at one site almost three hours after the blast.... At one blast site, American soldiers snapped pictures of the devastation before ducking out of the streets.

This is the harbinger of the new phase of the U.S.-Iraq relationship. The first phase, from 2003 to about 2005, consisted of Americans and our allies largely doing things for Iraqis, and often doing them very, very poorly. The second phase, stretching from 2005 to 2009, consisted of Americans and Iraqis trying desperately to do things together, miraculously avoiding not one but several total meltdowns and ultimately managing to snatch some elements of success from the jaws of failure. Now, with the implementation of the Status of Forces Agreement and President Obama's plan to withdraw U.S. forces, we have entered the third phase, the leap in the dark: Iraqis doing things largely and increasingly on their own while America, the coalition of one, stands on the sidelines in fewer and fewer numbers, advising, encouraging, supporting, and at times, just watching and waiting and wringing our hands. In this case, literally.

It's tempting to look at this and conclude that the sky is falling. That would be wrong, and here I humbly part ways with Tom Ricks's ongoing predictions of an "unraveling." Violence, as Peter Feaver has argued, is an unreliable metric for measuring success or failure. Just because terrorists can carry out a few coordinated, spectacular acts of carnage does not necessarily mean that they are a growing or reemerging threat to the Iraqi state. What's more, the attacks were surely made easier to carry out by what is an undeniable sign of progress: the removal of blast walls from the Baghdad streets. This says less about the capabilities of Iraq's enemies than it does about the increasing normalization of life in the country (though risks do come with that). And by all accounts, the Maliki government responded to these attacks as well as could be expected.

Let's not forget either that attacks like these still remain outliers in a far larger trend: Iraq's emergence as a normal country, with normal politics, a growing economy, and an increasingly capable government. Friends who have recently flown into Baghdad describe a scene that was unfathomable to them a couple years ago: kids playing in the streets, markets full and bustling, the sights and sounds of a normal Arab capital. These bombings won't change that. And this extends to Iraq's politics as well, which is increasingly colored by the jockeying and horse-trading of the democratic process. Even Maliki, with all of his troubling strongman tendencies, is being checked and balanced by Iraq's other rival factions. Talk of coups, or a reborn insurgency, or a renewed civil war all seem misplaced at this time.

Still, this new phase in Iraq will be far from smooth and peaceful. And more and more, the United States, like that soldier yesterday, will be a spectator, watching and waiting in the wings. Our main source of leverage is flying out of the country on C-17s -- which makes our diplomatic role, and our new ambassador, all the more important. We are leaving Iraq to the Iraqis, and though it will be hard and awful to watch as they struggle imperfectly to get their arms around the still-monumental problems that their country faces, this is the right thing for us to do. The days of America rushing in to help at every sign of trouble are over.

This war had to end at some point, and amid all the close calls and near catastrophes, we are fortunate that it is ending in the way that it is. And yet, days like yesterday are a reminder of how grim and costly this success will remain: sporadic violence that continues to murder and maim innocent Iraqis; an Iraqi government that, even when doing its best, will continue at times to fail its people; and America still able to help, still wanting to help, but not allowed to help, and in some sense, knowing it shouldn't help. This is success, but right now I don't feel much like clapping.

ALI YUSSEF/AFP/Getty Images

By Peter Feaver

I had some sympathy for the Obama folks when I read this newspaper account of yesterday's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. Apparently, it was a solid, business-oriented meeting. And since President Obama has reportedly stopped holding regular video-teleconferencing with Maliki (a staple of US-Iraqi relations under the last Administration), this meeting was especially important.

What caught my eye was President Obama's comment at the end of the story: ""Overall," Obama said, "we have been very encouraged by the progress that has been made."

This statement struck me as both honest and misleading. Honest, because if you start with a January 2007 frame of reference -- say then-candidate Obama's claim that surge was going to have no impact on violence -- then the progress has been remarkable and very encouraging. But it also struck me as misleading in the sense that it did not also say that the recent spike in violence, and even more the recent flare-up of Arab-Kurdish tensions, is undoubtedly discouraging, and I would be surprised if the Obama team did not feel the same. Of course, as the Post story related, Obama also acknowledged that there are "tough days ahead" in Iraq. But the overall message was one of progress, a word he invoked 6 times in the prepared remarks and 3 times in the answer to the first question and that is the lede for the story.

That got me wondering: would those folks (say the mainstream Bob Woodward or Tom Ricks, let alone other people in the nuttier fringes of the Bush-bashing chorus) who established a cottage industry lambasting Bush Administration rhetoric as "happy talk" rise up and start calling a foul on President Obama? President Bush regularly caveated his statements of progress with reminders that there were "tough days ahead" and, if memory serves, Rumsfeld was the guy who coined "long, hard slog." In their coverage of Bush, sometimes the reporters would include mention of the caveats and qualify their lede accordingly; sometimes the reporters would include mention of the caveats and yet stick to a "happy talk" lede; and sometimes the reporters would simply omit any mention of the caveats, perhaps the better to advance the "happy talk" lede. Regardless of how many times President Bush presented carefully caveated assessments, the Bush-bashers could always rest their indictment on one or two off-the-cuff uncaveated remarks.

At what point will Obama's rhetoric on Iraq suffer this same fate? I hope never and, even more, I hope it never deserves to. It is appropriate for President Obama to balance "if it bleeds, it leads" coverage with mention of developments that are not getting as much press attention. And it is appropriate for President Obama in public to exhort the Iraqis towards greater progress by emphasizing the positive rather than dwelling on the negative. In fact, President Obama has talked so little in public about Iraq I would welcome virtually anything he said. Of course, I also hope that President Obama is as candid and clear-eyed about the challenges in private as his predecessor was, and I hope he continues to offer appropriate caveats even if he is stressing a publicly optimistic message. If the "happy talk police" give him the free pass they never gave his predecessor, so be it. The Iraqi challenge is hard enough without having to duck "police" brutality, even if it is only rhetorical.

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

By Peter Feaver

The recent Kurdish gambit on a separate constitution is precisely the sort of thing I was worried about in making Vice President Biden the point man on Iraqi political reconciliation. When he was running for president, Biden sought to distinguish himself on the Iraq issue by prominently embracing the plan proposed by Peter Galbraith for forcibly dividing Iraq into three regions. This plan was popular with the Kurds -- no surprise, Galbraith was a long-time supporter of Kurdish interests -- but with no one else in the region (although the Iranians may have secretly liked it). It was panned by independent experts, and the American media generously avoided taking it seriously.

The Kurds may have taken it seriously, however, and their recent actions would seem drawn from the Galbraith-Biden playbook. Of course, one cannot blame Biden for Kurdish obstreperousness, but it is undeniably awkward to have America’s point man on the issue criticizing the Kurds for doing what for years he claimed was the only long-term solution for Iraq.

Biden is hardly the first political leader to be caught undermining his own campaign rhetoric on vital matters of national security. President Bush, himself, campaigned against the idea of using the military for nation-building and then committed the military to two massive nation-building projects in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Biden’s predicament is especially thorny, because to accomplish his new assignment, he must go beyond the pedestrian political hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another. He must also somehow persuade the Iraqis that he no longer believes what he once emphatically said. And he must accomplish this at a time when American prestige and leverage (what the Iraqis call wasta) is steadily diminishing in Iraq.