But experience in Afghanistan, and for that matter Iraq, shows that we overrate the usefulness of military power in shaping political goals. Even with a massive military presence in Iraq, the United States was unable to induce political leaders to compromise on the sharing of oil resources, the decentralization of power, or the drawing of borders between Kurdistan and central Iraq. Playing the honest broker requires dexterity and self-restraint, virtues that American diplomats rarely had to cultivate in the hegemonic era now passing.

Brute-force leverage is not only overrated but undesirable, because it requires a vacuum in the host country. Iraq is no longer a vacuum. And the United States can afford to play a diminished role there, as it cannot in Afghanistan, because Iraq has a politics, and Afghanistan, where Karzai holds all the reins of power, does not. Iraq's factions are still killing each other (albeit at a sharply reduced pace), but they are also talking to and making deals with each other. Indeed, whatever progress Iraq has made in recent years has been made through its political system. On de-Baathification, on the conduct of elections, and on the contested electoral count itself, Iraqi leaders seem to follow their worst instincts into zero-sum conflict, then just barely save themselves through political compromise. This scarcely makes the U.S. role irrelevant; several experts I talked to noted that all parties will look to American officials to guarantee the ultimate agreement-guarantees that could require some kind of American military role beyond 2011, when all troops are now scheduled to depart.

There is no reason to feel confident that the current round of horse-trading will end peacefully, or anytime soon, but at least there is precedent for the avoidance of calamity. And expert commentary on Iraq has taken a very slight turn for the positive in recent months. A brief issued in early July by Daniel Serwer of the U.S. Institute of Peace was titled "Iraq Is Spinning Its Wheels, But in the Right Direction." Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution recently noted that the political stalemate has not led to growing sectarian violence, which he termed "an extremely positive development," though he added that "there is plenty of time for the frustration to build."

In Iraq, optimism has almost always proved premature. And yet today there seems to be grounds for, if not optimism, then at least patience. Politics takes a long time to take root; it means learning to accept the legitimacy of public opinion, the possibility of losing, the need to reach across partisan or ethnic lines. It means, in short, learning to disagree peacefully. These habits develop slowly. Iraq has had an independent government for five years; before that, all it knew was despotism. So yes, politics there looks, and is, very ugly, but the only way to develop democracy is to practice it. At least the Obama administration has allowed Iraqi leaders to make their own mistakes -- not that they've had much of a choice in the matter.

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