I know I'm supposed to be writing about Afghanistan today, in advance of President Obama's speech tonight, but I am still waiting to hear what the man has to say before analyzing it, so you'll just have to join me as I wait and see.

Instead, I would like to note a curious reversal in "the other war." For seven years (not counting the first one, of course), Afghanistan has been labeled the "other war" or even the "forgotten war." The media flocked into Iraq when we invaded, covered the story's arc as it went from gung-ho to miserable, all the while largely ignoring Afghanistan. Who can really blame them? President Bush was obsessed with Iraq, and Afghanistan was seen (rightly or wrongly) as a problem which had already been solved. Of course, now we know different, what with the Senate placing the blame for allowing Osama Bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora squarely at the feet of Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration's entire rush to get into Iraq. But ever since the Iraq invasion, Afghanistan has been a mere afterthought, in the media's eyes, in the public's awareness, and in the White House as well.

But now Afghanistan is front and center. So be it. But in switching our attention to this long-neglected occupation, we seemingly have swapped the respective places of Iraq and Afghanistan in our public sphere. Anyone know what's going on in Iraq these days? Anyone?

Before I get to that, however, I have a few words to say about the double standard being applied to President Obama (as compared to President Bush). The president's detractors have done their best to rake Obama over the coals as he has been deciding what America's Afghanistan policy will now be, and the media has largely gone along for the ride. Obama is "dithering" on Afghanistan (as our former Vice President put it), and "not giving the generals on the ground what they have requested." This is poppycock.

Here are some solid facts, amid all the media blather. Fact Number One: Obama's speech, and Obama's new strategy, is being compared on all sides to the "surge" in Iraq. OK, by that measuring stick, Obama has taken exactly the same amount of time as President Bush took before announcing his new policy. Bush took three months before he announced his "surge," and Obama took three months to come up with his new Afghanistan policy. So why are the two being somehow measured by different yardsticks? I don't remember any Republicans berating Bush for taking three months to "dither" over a new war strategy, but they sure are out in full force to castigate Obama for doing exactly the same thing. This is rank hypocrisy of the first order, but you certainly wouldn't know that from listening to them. Or to the media, for that matter.

Fact Number Two: If anyone neglected Afghanistan, their names were Bush and Cheney. This is not knee-jerk Bush-bashing, I should point out. It's just a fact. Afghanistan was to be the centerpiece of Rumsfeld's "small footprint" war ideal, and was always fought on the cheap. The initial successes, such as they were (we'll conveniently ignore Tora Bora for the time being), were immediately followed by the Pentagon ramping up for the Iraq invasion. Resources were pulled away from Afghanistan for our Baghdad adventure. The number of troops in Afghanistan, both American and N.A.T.O., were never on the order of more than a few tens of thousands. When Bush left office, he left around 30,000-40,000 American troops in Afghanistan. Which is about what he had stationed there in the past, give or take a few. If 40,000 troops (or, for that matter, 70,000 troops) is not enough to do the job, then Bush was not doing the job for years before Obama arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Which somehow never gets mentioned by Obama's detractors.

Fact Number Three: President Obama was not rushed into some quick (and possibly disastrous) decision on Afghanistan troop levels because he had already doubled down there. The type of quick, decisive mobilization conservatives have been demanding for the past two or three months already happened earlier this year. Obama, months after taking office, moved 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan, for a total of around 70,000 troops. This doubled the American presence there from the level Bush maintained for years in the country. What Obama will announce tonight is actually a tripling down of our troops. Obama bought himself the time to do a thorough review by throwing 30,000 troops at the problem once this year already. But this fact is strangely almost never mentioned, either by Obama's supporters, or his detractors. And the media has joined them in chucking this fact down the memory hole.

Fact Number Four: In the American system of government, the generals do not decide how many troops go where, our civilian leadership does -- largely in the form of our Commander In Chief, the President of the United States. This basic and foundational fact of the American system of government seems lost on quite a few people. If the president -- any president -- is just supposed to do what the generals tell him, then we would have a de facto military rule of America's foreign policy. That is not the way it works. Just ask General MacArthur. If military officers say things the White House doesn't want to hear, then they can be quietly (or not so quietly) cashiered -- under any president (see: Bush, Shinseki). Every single military person in uniform is subject to the lawful orders of their superiors -- this is basic military law. Just because you have a bunch of gold braid on your uniform, this doesn't mean that you aren't also under orders from your superiors -- even if the only two people superior to you are the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States. You do what you are told... or you quietly resign... or you can be fired. Those are your three choices. You can make suggestions and requests and offer advice, but the decision is not yours -- no matter how high your rank. That is just the way it works (see: the Constitution).

That takes care of some thoughts I've had bouncing around my brain while watching the whole Afghanistan argument going on for the past few months. Sorry if they were a bit disconnected. But as for the actual new policy Obama is about to announce, as I said, we'll just have to listen to what he has to say tonight first.

But I can't help thinking that what will be missing from Obama's speech tonight will be more than a cursory overview of the Iraq situation. When the American media decamped in Iraq, and hustled over to the "new" story of Afghanistan, a lot of the public stopped paying any attention at all to Iraq as well. Obama basically put a hold on any real policy or troop changes in Iraq (other than rotating out a few thousand troops, a small fraction of the total) until early next year. But the clock is quickly running out on the next milestone Iraq must meet in order for us to begin the expected withdrawal on schedule.

Iraq is supposed to hold national elections in January -- one month from now. But they have been having serious problems agreeing on the framework for such an election. This is not really anything new, merely a continuation of a stagnant political situation that has been going on for years now. But, as I said, the clock is running out fast.

The problems in Iraq are exactly the same as they have been for the past year or so. The first problem is that the Kurds really would prefer their own country, and want as little to do with the central government as possible. The second is the simmering Sunni/Shi'ite tensions which have been subdued for a while, but may heat up again soon. And the third big problem is that Iraq has never agreed precisely on divvying up the revenues from their oil production.

The Kurdish situation is a struggle for control of land, and control of oil. It centers around the city of Kirkuk, but is really spread on a tenuous line across all of northern Iraq. Kirkuk used to be a majority-Kurd city, but Saddam Hussein forcibly relocated his own people in, and as many Kurds as he could out. This left the city's population (when we invaded) tilted in a direction that was historically different than the way it had been. Since then, Kurds have been desperately moving back to Kirkuk, in order to boost their numbers back to a prominent majority. This is all important because controlling Kirkuk means controlling the oil fields which surround it.

While Iraq made some political progress for the past few years, the Kurdish question was always left unresolved. Even taking a census in the Kurdish areas is contentious, because the consequences are so great. Taking a census is the precursor to holding an election, and the Kurds aim to boost their political control of the area.

This question, along with the Sunni/Shi'ite rifts, are now front and center for the Iraqi government. The loose equivalent here would be the reapportionment of House seats after every decennial census. Slicing up the political districts for the upcoming Iraqi election is almost more important than who actually gets elected, because it will all but guarantee a certain ethnic and sectarian mix in the Iraqi parliament after the ballots are counted.

And, not surprisingly, they can't agree how to do it. The Iraqi government has missed one after another self-imposed deadline to break this deadlock, the most recent happening about a week ago, with election laws passing in a half-empty parliament, and subsequent vetoes. But, as I said, they don't have much time left, if they really are going to pull off a January election.

This could have enormous consequences for America's strategy in Iraq. Because our withdrawal plan, as it stands, is basically "a few months after the national elections, troops start coming home in big numbers, until they are all home at the end of 2011." But if the election date slips, this may also cause the withdrawal schedule to slip. Currently, we're planning on early spring to begin our drawdown. If this slips, it could have a far-reaching impact on our military's readiness -- which would have consequences in Afghanistan, as well.

Which is why it really needs to be addressed tonight. But I'm not really expecting Barack Obama to do so. He may say a few words, or even a few paragraphs, about bringing our boys (and girls) back home from Iraq, but my guess is that it's going to be pretty vague language, if the subject even comes up. Obama will be doing his best to give specifics on America's Afghanistan policy, and he likely wants to keep focused on one policy at a time. This is understandable.

But I do worry that, in some strange "we've always been at war with Eastasia" type of way, that Iraq is in danger of swapping places in America's attention with Afghanistan. Is it fate that we can only focus on one war at a time? Will we always have one "hot" war, where troops are going in, and the media is feverishly reporting on -- and one "forgotten" war? Have just the names of the countries changed, in other words?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe next month, the media will wake up and flock back in to Iraq to report on the elections (if they happen on schedule, that is). Bush's Iraq "surge" quieted things down militarily in Iraq, but the fundamental political divisions in the country have never adequately been bridged by the Iraqi government. The Sunni/Shi'ite split, and the Kurdish/everyone else split -- to say nothing of how to slice up the oil money -- are just as unresolved as when the "surge" started. It is tempting to conclude that because the slaughter has stopped that these problems have been solved, but that is a mis-read of the situation. Perhaps the Iraqis will get their act together and address these problems in time, but there will be consequences for America if they don't. And while President Obama laid out a general timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, he has never really adequately filled in the details of this plan to the public. Time's running out for doing so, which is why I would really like to hear him take a few minutes of his speech tonight to address some of these questions.

-- Chris Weigant

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