I’d like to start with a moderator’s privilege and say that this easily has been one of the best discussions we’ve had on this site. The balance of opinion among our experts is that the Iraq War is not over—which is not in itself a terribly surprising verdict, but what is so interesting and rewarding to read is the rich variety of perspectives, informed by history, on how the war is continuing to play out. Michael Vlahos challenges the easy assumption that “all wars end” and notes that “wars of identity can span centuries.” Dov Zakheim raises the chilling possibility of a wider sectarian war in the Middle East pulling in players from the Gulf states to Turkey. Daniel Serwer says that the next phase of the conflict might be “between Kurdish forces and Baghdad’s security forces.”

And yet on the whole Washington, as Joseph Collins points out, does not seem to be taking these quite plausible possibilities very seriously. There seems to be a general fatigue about talking about Iraq. “The Iraq War is not over; we are just acting as if it were,” Collins notes.

What can the U.S., at this point, do to ensure the best possible outcome in terms of American interests? Not all that much, most of our experts say. “The end of the conflict in Iraq has always been up to the Iraqis,” Gordon Adams writes. “Having unleashed the whirlwind, with vast ignorance of Iraqi society, we cannot now control the outcome and, arguably, never could have.”

Thanks to everyone who has sent in posts—and as always, more are welcome. Are there are any so far unspoken optimists on the Iraq War who would like to be heard—those who agree with Col. Robert Killebrew that, in fact, the U.S. “may be on the brink” of achieving its core objective of establishing a “democratic, pro-Western country?”

Two Iraq wars are over: the one between Saddam’s armed forces and the Coalition and the one between Shia militias and Sunni resistance. The one between the Iraqi security forces and any serious internal challenge to the state’s monopoly on the means of violence seems to be coming to an end. A fourth Iraq war—between Kurdish forces and Baghdad’s security forces—is still possible.

While security remains a priority, the issues vital to the US now are increasingly political rather than military. A stable, sovereign Iraq able to defend itself is very much in our interest. I don't see how that interest can be achieved except through relatively open and representative governance. The January national elections are the next test of whether the most democratic system in the Arab world can be maintained as such.

The outcome of those elections depends in large part on the system under which they are conducted. Elections matter, and election systems matter. A closed list system in which voters choose only pre-determined political lists, like the one used four years ago, will reinforce sectarian and ethnic divisions. An open list system, in which voters can choose individual candidates, will likely prevent pre-election formation of sectarian-based coalitions and leave the way open to post-election formation of a cross-sectarian and cross-ethnic governing coalition. The US should be pressing hard for an open list system.

Continuing the withdrawal of US troops following the January elections will depend on a resolution of Arab/Kurdish issues, in particular the boundaries of Kurdistan and the rules governing oil exploration and exploitation. The cat and mouse game that Baghdad and Erbil controlled forces play in the so-called "disputed territories" is dangerous to stability throughout the region. Without US forces playing a daily mediating and confidence building role, the likelihood of miscalculation will rise dramatically. So far, the US has wisely looked to UN mediation and technical advice on the territorial issues, but a more direct American role is needed to get the issues resolved in a time frame that permits the US withdrawal to continue on President Obama's schedule.

A third issue requiring continued US engagement concerns Iraq's neighbors, which have a huge stake at risk in Iraq. The Bush Administration’s half-hearted multilateral efforts with the neighbors produced little, though gradually Turkish/Iraqi relations have improved. The Obama Administration’s bilateral jawboning with neighbors does not appear to be producing much more. Vice President Biden’s political and diplomatic weight need to be brought to bear, in particular with the Saudis, Syrians and Kuwaitis. Iran has fortunately been preoccupied with its own internal problems of late, but a whole-hearted sit-down with Teheran out of the public eye is still needed: Iran has more ability to do harm in Iraq, and more capacity to be helpful, than the rest of the neighbors put together.

Despite everything, Iraq could still be a powerful force for the better in the region. The US needs to make the kind of strong, focused political and diplomatic effort President Obama promised when he announced the withdrawal at Camp Lejeune in February.

We are now in the interregnum in Iraq. The first act has finished. Saddam is deservedly dead and the initial chaos is over. The six year long United States policy, whatever anyone may think of it, did provide that positive service to the world. It eliminated a crazed, genocidal maniac and gave a nation a shot at some form of governmental process.

And now, as Paul Harvey said, for the rest of the story. Part two of this venture is going to be far more complex. Jack Kennedy said about Vietnam that in the final analysis, it was theirs to win or lose. The same reasoning now stands for the country of Iraq.

The situation is precarious. The central government in Baghdad remains weak at best. Its ability to balance off any number of religious and regional sides in this chess game are suspect at best. All sides are aware that the US troop presence remains for another year or so. They also calculate they can wait for the US to leave before making any moves.

Oddly enough, the outside forces stirring up so much trouble before will likely to continue to fall into oblivion. No one likes Al Queda and they have shot their wads. The Iranians don't really want an unstable neighbor to the west as they also watch wearily what is going on in Afghanistan and balance off a Russia that is primarily acting as a friend, while carefully weighing its own interests with America. And never mind Tehran's internal problems.

So what happens to Baghdad. A rocky status quo for the next two years. Then, the gradual withdrawal of American forces -- unlikely to return. A brief history lesson -- it took two years from the Paris Peace accords signing to the fall of Saigon. In the final analysis, it is up to the people of Iraq to determine their future.

Greetings from historic Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where I am composing this week's comments on a computer that feels like it arrived with the Pilgrims. Of course the Iraq War is not over. It will never be over as long as borders drawn by outsiders force three antagonistic ethnic groups to co-exist within the same country. When the British dismembered the Ottoman Empire after World War One, they kluged together three provinces centered on Baghdad, Basra and Mosul into a fictional polity called Iraq-Jazeera that had no organic identity. Ever since that political "innovation" was devised, the story of Iraq has been one of dictatorship and instability, because force is required simply to hold the place together.

So the real question isn't whether the war is over, because violence is endemic in the existing political arrangements. The question is whether the United States can extract itself from a central role in suppressing that violence. My guess is that it cannot, since we have an oil-driven economy and most of the world's known oil reserves are located in and around Iraq. We cannot afford to let the tribe with the most guns decide who will have access to that oil, and on what terms. Thus, we are doomed to remain in Iraq in some military capacity for decades to come, and if we delude ourselves into believing otherwise, the consequences for the global economy could dwarf the war costs we have incurred to date. Happy "independence" day.

I find it odd that we persist in thinking that the struggle in the modern state of Iraq is somehow about the West and especially about the foreign policy obsessions of America. The Iraqis and those lucky enough to have some historical perspective on the millinnia long struggle for power in Mesopotamia know that this is an unending story interrupted by periods in which one community and its leaders dominates the others. This pattern is repeated across the Islamicate culture continent from Morocco to the Pacific. Only the actors change. The play goes on... Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, etc. The latest phase of this struggle happens to have involved us. When we are gone, the drama will continue. "True inter-communal reconcuiliation?" You must be joking.

The degree to which the Iraq War turns a final corner will be determined heavily by that country's progression toward genuine, robust ethno-sectarian reconciliation. Prime Minister Maliki's response to Vice President Biden's urgings related to this critical issue suggest the Iraqi government still has a long way to go in that respect.

Some might be inclined to dismiss the significance of Maliki's rebuff as a natural reaction to what might well appear to Maliki and other Iraqis as American interference in Iraqi internal political affairs. And, of course, Biden's past advocacy of the notion of partitioning Iraq, highly unpopular among most Iraqis, is another factor that was bound to play into Maliki's reaction.

Nonetheless, Maliki and his predominantly Shi'a backers have openly objected to or visibly dragged their feet regarding reconciliation for several years now. On key issues from de-Ba'thification to the US-inspired deal with the so-called Awakening, Maliki has made quite clear his seemingly knee-jerk reluctance to make the concessions needed to complete the process of drawing Iraq's important Sunni Arab community back into the the Iraqi political mainstream.

Failure of Maliki's government in this important area could present the US with difficult choices if the situation de-stabilizes in the critical year following the US withdrawal from populated areas to the extent that Maliki is compelled to ask that the US military intervene once again. Should, for example, such intervention involve helping the Prime Minister put down Sunni Arab unrest related to widespread, questionable arrests on the part of Maliki's security forces, abuses on the part of Shi'a militias to which the predominantly Shi'a security forces largely turn a blind eye, or excesses on the part of the security forces themselves, US forces could potentially lose the benefit of the relative neutrality with which they have been viewed since 2007.

As a result, in the absence of further, meaningful reconciliation and any solid evidence of government abuse, Washington should warn the government privately that assistance in quelling related violence would not be automatic. Indeed, perhaps to give the government added incentive to embrace rather than reject needed reconciliation, conditions under which the US would be reluctant to re-engage should be conveyed quietly to Maliki now. That way, the US might be able to reduce the likelihood of being called upon to help clean up messes largely of Maliki's own making, involvement in which could place US forces in greater danger than has been the case more recently.

As in most insurgencies, I think what we have seen in Iraq for the past year is a lull in activity on all sides generated by two factors: (1) none of the participants wanted to go head-on against reinforced U.S. combat forces; and (2) none of the participants saw much point in wasting men and ordnance on a U.S. force whose leaders had promised to withdraw in a relatively short timeframe. On this last point, the various insurgent groups have struck me as more or less following Ahmed Shah Masood's argument that after fighting the Soviets for a decade it would be fundmanetally stupid to attack them on their way out of the country. The other side of Masood's coin was that he could always resume the war if Moscow reneged, and this too probaby is in the minds of the inusrgents in Iraq.

I agree that the war is far from over. There are simply too many scores to settle among Iraqis, and too much at stake in terms of the regional power balance to avoid external interference in Iraqi affairs. For the United States, there seems to be three sets of questions the answers to which could yet delay a final decsion for a complete U.S. withdrawal:

--After we are gone, are the Kurds realistic enough and do they have a stable enough regime to control anti-Turkish activities that could lead to a Turkish intervention? And, do the Kurds appear strong enough to deter a Shia government in Baghdad from moving against their oil resources?

--Will there be a bloody Sunni-Shia civil war after we have fully departed? While I think there will be, and I think the correct U.S. response would be "who cares," is it possible for a U.S. administration led by either party to walk away from a potential civil war, or to refuse to reintervene if things get ugly in humanitarian as well as military terms?

--Will the United States leave Iraq knowing that we have destroyed Saddam's regime, which served as a highly effective shield that protected Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria from the westward flow of al-Qaeda-inspired mujahedin from South Asia? A new Shia government in Baghdad surely would not want these folks in Iraq, but would they be strong enough, or interested enough to prevent their transit through Iraq to the Levant?

I suppose these questions cannot be definitively answered at this point in time, but I do hope they are being debated in the administration and around town. My own view is that because we are going to fail in Afghanistan, and as a result the westward flow of trained mujahedin toward the Levant will continue, we will find it extraordinarily difficult to entirely dismantle even the limited shield of protection we are now providing for stability and security in the Levant.

It is exceeding difficulty to pronounce on these issues for three reasons: the "War' was multiform since we faced several armed opponents; and it was being fought as much at the political level as the military level; and, finally, the aims and purposes of the intervention shifted constantly. How we define 'end' and 'success,' therefore, remains fluid. Permit me the unconventional response of drawing a picture of what Iraq will look like in five years time, and each of us can assess its likelihood what that scenario would mean in terms of answers to the questions posed.

Here is my vision of Baghdad, New Year's Day 2014.

The President will be a Shi'ite general. The office of presidency will have been enhanced relative to the Prime Minister through constitutional amendments. Formally, it will resemble the French 5th republic. General 'X' will be a secular Shi'ite who passed muster with Ayatollah Sistani (or his successor) by paying dutiful attention to public displays of devotion to the Faith. In this, he will be in the mold of American politicians who 'find Jesus' the day before they decide to run for national office. He may or may not have been an officer in Saddam's day. He will have gained popularity by kicking the Kurds out of Diyala Province and confronting them successfully over Kirkuk. Some small blood will be shed but no civil strife to match a blistering war of words. This will make him a hero among Sunni Arabs as well as Shi'ite Arabs. His actions will have toughened the stance of the then government in bitter dealings with the Kurds, a question made all the more compelling by a prolonged decline in oil prices and, therefore, revenues.

General 'X' will win office by garnering about 65% percent of the vote in an election that is only slightly rigged. On this basis, he will pass as a shining example of Arab democracy - helping Washington to finesse the overriding strategic fact that it has been shown the door. General 'X's' government will bring Iraq much closer to Iran

than to the United States. Economic and cultural ties will be particularly intense. Cordiality in all directions will be the leitmotif of his foreign policy. It will aim at keeping the Americans off Iraq's back and mollifying Sunni states in the region. On the Iranian nuclear issue, he will follow a studied course of neutrality and keep a low profile.

There will be a vestigial American military presence - confined to a limited number of bases. Standing up to the Americans in rejecting President's Obama's plans to maintain a bigger force with greater discretionary powers will add to his popularity. Our grandiose Vice-Regal Embassy will have no more than a few hundred personnel instead of the 1,300 expected. There will be ample time for recreational activities.

General 'X' will seek to consolidate his power by using oil revenues as the all-purpose emollient. He will work through tribal leaders and provincial governors who, for the most part, will be fellow military men. Any faction that gets out of line will be slapped down - hard. That's the advantage of having a military hero in power. If really clever, he'll insert into his Inaugural Address the phrases: "With malice toward none; with charity toward all.'In other words,

Iraq will look not that different than the country as it would have been in the wake of a post-Saddam military coup. Two significant differences: the Shi'ites rather the Sunnis will at the top of the heap; relations with Iran will be intimate rather than frosty. That is what will be called 'success' in many retrospective accounts of the American adventure in Mesopotamia.

The end of the conflict in Iraq has always been up to the Iraqis. US leverage in that country has been on decline since the first year after the invasion and has been minimal, even with the surge. That has not kept the US from maintaining a large force in country, which could be withdrawn more quickly than it is being withdrawn (we are already behind the original one brigade a month pace promised by candidate Obama).

I largely agree with Mike Vlahos' assessment of the possible vectors of continued conflict; they have always been present in Iraqi society and are only more so as a result of the ill-fated US invasion in 2003. Having unleased the whirlwind, with vast ignorance of Iraqi society, we cannot now control the outcome and, arguably, never could have.

The best result today for the US would be a more rapid withdrawal, at the most a minimal training presence, and a more comprehensive regional policy toward the MIddle East. The latter is not the subject of this discussion, but it is crucial to the future of Iraq, as well as Syria, Israel, Palestine and even Iran.

Best we leave soon, quietly, and leave the sorting to the Iraqis. The lessons are for us, not for them, and it is not clear, based on the new conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we have learned those lessons.

The Iraq War is not over; we are just acting as if it were.

The Iraq case yields important lessons in Exit Strategies. While an Exit Strategy makes perfect sense, it has to be adjustable to meet the situation on the ground. Unfortunately, Exit Strategies in the US political milieu become pain mitigation schedules, where the timetables dominate situational variables. The Obama team has already begun to show in Iraq, in Iran, and in Afghanistan a noticeable lack of agility, an inability to adapt goal, plans and current cirucumstances. My sense, too, is that the military, sensing this lack of agility, is not giving the same quality of "hard cheese" advice that was tolerated at the end of the Bush 43 administration. In Afghanistan, the National Security Advisor was quoted as telling a group of Marines that contrary to on-going reviews, any further request for troops will not be honored or perhaps even tolerated.

Iraq may survive our rapid force posture adjustments. The war there may simmer or boil, but Iraq can handle it. If it does so, it will be despite our politico-military policy, not because of it. What does all of this tell us for our commitment to the war in Afghanistan?

The Iraq war is not over but the American phase is.

One of the enduring dilemmas the United States faces when involved in counterinsurgency support is what might be called the "partner problem." Insurgency arises when a regime or state is badly flawed in multiple ways. To resolve the conflict, the regime must address these flaws. The problem is that the national elite--the very group which could address the flaws--has a vested personal stake in sustaining the flawed system.

Hence the great challenge for the United States is compelling our partner regime to undertake reform that it does not want to. This requires leverage. The regime must be reliant on our support and, as importantly, must believe that we will withdraw it if they fail to undertake serious reform.

In 2006 and 2007, we had leverage over the Iraqi government for these exact reasons. Now we do not. The Maliki government gives every sign of being confident that it could get by without American support if it needed to. Indications are that it will not complete the program of reform needed to ameliorate Iraq's deep sectarian divisions. This suggests that an upsurge in conflict is inevitable. And, as Vice President Biden recently stated, the chances of an American re-intervention are nil.

It is not clear what form and extent this future violence will take. The nightmare is a full scale civil war involving other regional states. Another scenario is the abolition of Iraqi democracy and the emergence of a new dictator who attempts to quell or control sectarian violence.

While the United States can hope that Iraqi democracy survives and that nation's leaders commit to deep reform, I am not optimistic about that outcome.

All wars end, so we say. But perhaps some never do. Wars of identity can span centuries.

From time-to-time there may be formal suspensions of hostilities, and fighting will die down for a while. But war is not just about fighting. A bigger lens will show us how war is ritual and even sacred activity — a celebration of identity. War’s ritual creates both a shared narrative and a collective passage for a people: Thus war is a transforming agent of identity itself. This was true of America’s sacred wars: Revolution, Civil War, and World War.

It is also true for Iraq. We can begin the story of Iraqi identity in the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman 1850s, the transformation of society, and the emergence of Iraqi nationalism in response to the Young Turks movement. Then the great revolution against the British Mandate in 1920 became a narrative-building passage for Iraqi identity. Then came the succession of coups and the emergence at last of a dictator’s vision of modern religious nationalism — in Saddam.

But like an identity-undertow, there was always the current of other consciousness: of the Shi’a and the Assyrian and the Kurd … and the Alpha Dog behavior of the Sunni elite. Downtrodden Shi’a, excluded Assyrian and Kurd, all made for a less-than-cemented national identity. Perhaps the cresting of Iraqi national identity was in the Iran-Iraq War, when the sacred narrative of battle seemed to for a moment to bind bitter internal competition in brief unity.

But Saddam overreached in his invasion of Kuwait, and in the aftermath of battlefield defeat came the Shi’a uprising and America’s succor of the Kurds. The nation of Iraq was fraying.

In its invasion the United States blew the national conception of Iraq apart. Moreover our occupation reified an independent Kurdish state and a Shi’a Islamic republic free to appropriate the internationally recognized moniker: “Iraq.”

Resulting civil war between a Sunni ruling elite overthrown and new Shi’a national management resulted in a second defeat for Sunni. Furthermore this narrative of insurgency and resistance cemented and celebrated diverging identities within Iraq.

There is still a remembered and residual Iraqi national identity. We saw nostalgic flashes of this in the June 30 celebrations of American withdrawal from the cities. But such a soft national identity is not a nation-state reality — because the war created narratives that now rule identity in a struggle for realization by Shi’a, Kurd, and Sunni: still unresolved.

In the short term, a truce or armistice-like situation may be extended if two dynamics continue to attain: general exhaustion and apprehension about full-scale resumption of hostilities; and effective Shi’a cooptation of Sunni leadership combined with adroit negotiation with the Kurds over Kirkuk.

General Strategic Exhaustion

Since 2003, one out of every twenty non-Kurd Iraqis has died because of the war (also referred to as “excess deaths”): 5%. This includes non-combatant deaths — as in thousands of children who die each year related to untreated water and open sewage, that in war’s aftermath we had pledged to fix.

In World War I France lost about 5% in battle deaths. In the last year of war and the famine-winter that followed, Japan lost 5% of its population. Battle deaths and civilian casualties for the white population of the Confederacy was also about 5%.

The death of one out of twenty in war can have a devastating impact on society. But as we see from comparing the impact of this 5% threshold, we can see consequences that vary from culture to culture. Japan never recovered its sacred war nationalism after 1945, and France was so disheartened by Verdun that it could not effectively unify and prosecute full-stop élan vital again in 1940.

Yet the South continued to resist Yankee Reconstruction even after defeat, waging an effective, unconventional insurgency for eleven years, arguably winning it. In Iraq a devastated Sunni community continues hard resistance, if at lower levels of violence.

This may suggest that resistance is seen as an existential bargaining tool in Sunni negotiation with the ruling Shi’a. It works on Shi’a thinking in one way to deter them from slamming the Sunni into subservience. It also works as leverage in the ongoing tug-and-pull over terms of cooptation. Finally, it operates as a signal that the Sunni are not played-out. In the face of twin defeat — loss of rule and their virtual ethnic cleansing from Baghdad — they can (and do) still fight.

Cooptation and Negotiation

Is this an effective enticement to Shi’a cooptation? Cooptation requires taking care of the Sunni leadership community — and that means a plump and guaranteed oil buy-off. Plus there must also be some accommodation in terms of a Sunni slice of the army and civil service.

But cooptation here is a guarantee also of identity-autonomy. It is a straight buy-off, up-front and on mutually agreed terms. It is not reconciliation. It is a path to extending the truce but it in no way diminishes the unresolved struggle among Iraqi identities. In spite of the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad, this struggle will continue to be bitterly highlighted in mixed Sunni-Shi’a provinces. It will be a flashpoint for renewed fighting.

The path to Kurdish co-existence is even more indistinct. Kurdistan escaped most of the violence, and has emerged as an unrecognized nation-state. It will not give this realized sacred identity up without a fight. Nor will it give up the symbolic centerpiece of its fulfillment, which is Kirkuk. The Shi’a Islamic Republic of Iraq will need to develop a long-term conflict-deferral framework that defuses the likelihood of ultimatum and war and which postpones for as long as possible a hard resolution.

Time here would be on the Shi’a side, especially if the Islamic republic is able to successfully co-opt the Sunni leadership, build up its oil revenue and army, and present a dominant negotiating position down the road.

Shi’a strategies of Sunni cooptation and Kurdish conflict-deferral are achievable but require a level of strategic sophistication, dispassion, and patience which are not in full evidence in today’s Maliki government. More bluntly, this government would have to do everything right, even at the clamoring expense of its own domestic constituencies, to pull off a near-to-mid-term strategy of Sunni cooptation and Kurdish conflict-deferral.

If they do however in the near-term manage to pull this off, we should take the opportunity and get out. The true identity-picture in Iraq is so infused with deep-running passions and unresolved narratives that the United States should not allow itself to be exposed to the very likely re-ignition of them in the years ahead.

The Iraqi war is far from over. In fact, the withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi urban centers moves the war in Iraq to a new and more delicate -- not to say dangerous -- phase; delicate for us, delicate for the Iraqis, and delicate for the prospects for stability in the Middle East.

Such much dust has been raised by the controversy over the prosecution of the Iraq war that it's useful to remember that the United States' ultimate objective in the country was the establishment of a democratic, pro-Western country that could be an example to other, less free and less pro-Western countries in the region. Well, after a number of fits and starts, we may be on the brink of seeing that objective realized, provided the following three conditions continue to be met:

First, the United States must remain steadfast in its support for the emerging Iraqi republic, despite waning public interest in the United States, a decreasing military presence, and -- and this will hurt -- increasing snubs by the Iraqi government itself, which has to demonstrate to its people and the Arab world in general that it stands on its own feet. This assumes that the Iraqi government can stand on its own feet -- and that the US can bite its lip and work below the salt to support the establishment of Iraqi civil institutions. This will be a huge challenge to the Obama government, beset as it is with more current problems. Whether they can rise to the occasion remains in doubt, in my mind.

Second, the Iraqi security forces must continue to improve and professionalize, and not fall back into the Saddam-era model of oppression that will come most easily when the pressure's on. A major part of the professionalization and improvement impetus must come from the United States military services, from the advisory and security assistance structures we put in place during the current period. Again, our sustained support can't be taken from granted. Aside from whether the Administration's heart is really in finishing up -- particularly when doing so validates former President Bush's strategy -- the US military services, stretched as they are even as Iraq draws down, have shown no particular enthusiasm for security assistance or advisory functions. Secretary Gates will have to keep the services' nose to the grindstone to insure that the Iraq security services get the wherewithal they need, even as US combat forces withdraw and Iraq becomes more strident about its sovereignty.

Finally, Iran stands as the great spoiler over all our and the Iraqis' plans. Even as the new government fights off AQI and the remaining hard-line Sunni insurgents, Iran will continue to be the new country's major, anti-democratic, anti-Western threat -- and they are neighbors. In the aftermath of the Iranian quasi-revolution of recent weeks, most analysts (including this one) expect the Iranian government to become more aggressive, more anti-Western, and more focused on international threats as a way to coalesce internal support for the regime -- a path they're taking today -- and the result will be, almost without question, moves against the growing sovereignty of Iraq. The degree of Iranian penetration into the Iraqi government's highest councils, into the security services, and into the society itself is unknown but potentially a potent force. This comes at a time when, as outlined above, US public interest is dropping, US military support is declining as well, and the new Iraqi government is just getting to its feet. Iran bears watching.

So -- no, the war isn't over. It's just moved into a new phase, on in which there are new balances and new operational concerns. We're winning, in fact, but like the sprinter who rounds the last curve and sees the tape ahead, we can change the pace and maybe even switch lanes, but we can't slow down.

The Iraq War most certainly is not over. It is not just a matter of the bombs that have been detonated in the past few weeks. More importantly, it is that Iraq is inherently an unstable place--a land that the British artificially constructed and that incorporates three major ethnic and/or religious groups, Shi'a, Arab Sunnis, and Kurdish Sunnis (not to mention the smaller Turkomen and Christian populations) that despise one another. As the United States gradually withdraws from the country, and reduces its force levels, the destructive forces that have chosen to be quiescent for the moment will emerge once again.

Iraq's half century since 1958 demonstrates that the country can only be held together by a "strong man," backed by a powerful military. While Nuri al-Malaki may be, and certainly appears to be trying to be, that man, it is far from clear that he will be able to establish himself as the absolute ruler of the country without first surviving a civil war. The Sunnis will never accept him; nor will the Kurds. The Sunnis will not tolerate absolute Shi'a dominance of Iraq, and can be expected to receive clandestine, and perhaps not so clandestine, support from their Sunni brethren in the Gulf and beyond. The Kurds may finally declare their independence, thereby realizing a long-standing Turkish nightmare and prompting a full onslaught by Turkey's powerful armed forces. A major Turkish incursion in northern Iraq may prove the justification for an Iranian incursion in the south, putatively in support of Maliki, but not less to avenge Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran. Memories are very long in the Middle East; and the memories of Tehran's feudal ayatollahs are longer than most. And where will the United States be when all this is occurring? It will find itself exactly in the situation that is has fought for years to prevent: in the midst of a bloody three-way feud, with international participation, that it cannot control.

What is Washington to do? It could accelerate its withdrawal, as the British once did, and let the parties fight it out. In that case, the Obama Administration will be blamed for "losing Iraq." Alternately, it could maintain a significantly larger force than it currently anticipates as a residual presence in Ira. Doing so would stress America's overall force posture, however, at a time when the war in Afghanistan is heating up, and while the crisis with Korea has not cooled down. Finally, and this has long been my own preferred outcome, the Obama Administration can commit to maintaining the integrity of Iraq's borders, redeploying its residual troops to positions that will enable them to constitute a major tripwire that would prevent forces others from entering the country by means of a full scale offensive, and, incidentally, ensuring that Iraq does not attack its neighbors again.

Will such a policy prevent a civil war? Most certainly not. But if Iraqis choose to kill one another, there is little the United States can do, other than redeploying another 100,000 troops to that troubled country. It is unlikely that the American people would stand for that, or,for that matter, that President Obama would stake his Administration's future on such a policy. The President has made it clear, as George W. Bush had often emphasized during his 2000 campaign and in the early days of the Administration, that Washington would pursue a more modest role in international affairs. The events of 9/11 led President Bush to jettison his approach to foreign policy, with results that historians will debate for years to come; I doubt that President Obama would do the same if civil war flares up again in Iraq. He has too many other irons in the fire, both domestically and abroad, to risk all on yet another Iraqi gamble.

For all practical purposes, the war in Iraq ended for the U.S. in November 2008, when the Bush administration signed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Maliki government. Because the Iraqi government and people would not agree to allow U.S. forces to remain in the country when the UN mandate expired, without setting a specific timetable for their quick withdrawal from the cities, and a more gradual withdrawal from the entire country, the Bush administration had to agree to leave the cities by July 1, 2009 and the country by December 2011.

The Maliki government insisted on this arrangement for three reasons. First, the majority of the Iraqi people vigorously opposed the invasion and the presence of American occupiers. Maliki knew that, without these specific dates, the Iraqi people would not approve the SOFA in the upcoming referendum. That is why he declared the date for withdrawal from the cities as a national holiday.

Second, as long as the U.S. forces remained in Iraq in large numbers indefinitely, Maliki would be viewed as an American puppet, making it difficult for him to pass the long-delayed nation building legislation such as the oil and gas law necessary to bring about meaningful political reconciliation. That is why he described the withdrawal as a result of Iraq’s success in repulsing the invaders.

Third, with more than 600,000 people in the Iraqi security forces, Maliki felt that his government could handle remnants of the insurgency. In a national address, on the eve of the withdrawal, Maliki claimed that his national unity government succeeded in putting down the sectarian war that threatened the unity and sovereignty of Iraq.

President Bush, who was adamantly opposed to setting deadlines, put lipstick on the pig by contending that the Iraqi demand for withdrawal was in fact a victory for his policy. Moreover, since Bush was leaving office before the withdrawal from the cities began, the Obama administration would be blamed for any problems that resulted from the withdrawal. In fact, Vice President Cheney characterized the withdrawal from the cities as irresponsible, warning that he would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point.

What happens next is really up to the Iraqi government and people. Despite the fact that the purpose of the “surge” in Iraq in 2007 was to create breathing space for political reconciliation, meaningful reconciliation has not yet occurred. One reason for the delay is that as long as the Iraqi leaders knew that they could rely on American forces to help keep the violence from spinning out of control, they had no real incentive to make these hard choices. Now they can no longer use that excuse.

Until meaningful political reconciliation occurs, there will continue to be violence. Can the Iraqis handle it? General Odierno, for one, believes they can. He told CNN: “I believe they are ready.” Moreover, a force 600,000 Iraqi Security Forces should be more than adequate to deal with a small number of insurgents if they are properly motivated and lead. And to help make sure that this happens, the U.S. will have tens of thousands of U.S. advisors and trainers embedded with Iraqi forces until the end of 2011 and U.S. units will be on call in case the Iraqi units run into trouble. Finally, the U.S. has in fact been withdrawing from Iraqi cities over the last six months. It was not as if U.S. forces were in all the major urban areas in full force until June 30, 2009.

There are several things that the Obama administration can do to help the Iraqis remain on a relatively stable path. First, we must keep our commitments to withdrawing our troops from the country. When Bush signed the SOFA, the U.S. had the equivalent of approximately 52 brigades (combat and support) in Iraq. To withdraw in 36 months, this would mean taking out about one and a half brigades a month. Not carrying out this commitment would undermine our credibility, reinforce the perception of the U.S. as an occupier, empower the insurgency, and give the Iranians a reason to interfere. In fact, the leaders of Iraq’s most prominent insurgent groups celebrated the U.S. pullout from cities as a victory against foreign occupiers and called for unity among Iraqis.

Second, we need to put pressure on Maliki to ensure that he lives up to his commitment to pay and incorporate a significant number of pro-U.S. Sahwa militias, who cooperated with us to defeat Al-Qaeda, into the Iraqi Security Forces.

Third, we should convene a regional conference with all of Iraq’s neighbors to discuss how the region can work together to minimize meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs and prevent any instability in Iraq from expanding throughout the region.

Finally, in addition to training Iraq’s security forces, we need to provide training to improve the capacity of Iraq’s civil servants to carry out their tasks.

When the U.S. military leaves Iraq completely by the end of 2011, it will mark the end of nearly nine years of occupation and allow the future of Iraq to be determined by the Iraqis. Whether we will have stayed too long or left too soon is beside the point. At some point we will have to leave and turn things over to the Iraqis. Our interest will be to ensure that Iraq’s internal problems do not spill over into the region.