A Tale of Two Wars: Iraq

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A Sunni militia member surveys the landscape outside Fallujah. The U.S.'s embrace of Sunni tribes has helped chase out al-Qaeda, but Iraq's sectarian tensions still simmer.

Yuri Kozyrev / Noor for TIME

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No matter who wins the presidential election, the drawdown of U.S. power in Iraq will continue. The U.N. mandate that legalized America's occupation is running out at the end of this year, and the Iraqi government, created by a democratic process that the U.S. put in place, is eager to take over the reins from what most of its citizens view as a foreign occupation. It is the orderliness of that transfer of power that will most challenge the new President. And he will be only partly master of his destiny. The fate of the U.S. mission--to make Iraq a stable, democratic country that is an asset rather than a liability in the war on terrorism--is increasingly out of American hands. The U.S. now needs to buy time for the Iraqi state to take control of its own problems--on security, corruption and sectarianism--before they become overwhelming once again. "This is what Iraqis say they want," says a senior U.S. diplomat. "As Iraq gradually takes control over its affairs, you are going to see less American influence. The question is, Will [the transition] be orderly and deliberate ... or does it become unduly hastened?"

To a large extent, how and when America leaves Iraq will depend on Iraq's elected leaders. Iraq's national parliament is a monument to the success of the U.S.'s nation-building efforts. It's rare for a correspondent in the region to have an opportunity to meet so many politicians of such opposing views so quickly and so amicably, drinking tea and eating sesame cookies from the same canteen. Good luck doing that in Syria. But there's a reason Iraq's politicians are easy for a reporter to meet: most of them rarely leave the security bubble of the fortified International Zone, the miniature government city-state within Baghdad. The parliament is much harder to reach if you are an average Iraqi trying to get through many security checkpoints. And such is the fear Iraqi politicians have of their countrymen that there are no Arab Iraqi state forces inside the International Zone. The only Iraqis are Kurdish peshmerga forces, which are considered more difficult for insurgents to infiltrate. The rest are either U.S. soldiers or foreign civilian security contractors.

Moreover, start asking questions of Iraq's politicians, and the veneer of national unity wears thin. The new electoral system created ethnic and sectarian political blocs that are pulling the country apart. Most of the Arab political parties, for example, suspect that the Kurds are preparing to expel Arabs from contested areas in Mosul and Kirkuk.