Five months after its scheduled parliamentary elections, Iraq is still at a political impasse in negotiations for a governing coalition. Some assume this means the U.S. must scale back its withdrawal, or at least simply reclassify combat troops as military support troops in order to meet the deadline, but Obama is expected to signal a continued commitment to the administration’s goals:

“Make no mistake: Our commitment in Iraq is changing, from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats,” Obama said in excerpts released ahead of the speech.

Obama will also have to address goals for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, about which the Administration and House leadership voiced different expectations on the Sunday shows. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, following the administration’s recent line, downplayed the significance of the July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing troops, saying that it “will be of fairly limited numbers. … [I]t will depend on the conditions on the ground.”

House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who’s had to contend with an increasingly discontented Democratic caucus — 102 House Democrats voted against the most recent war funding bill last week — said Americans would not be satisfied with a mere symbolic show. ”Well, I hope it is more than that,” she told ABC’s “This Week.” “I know it’s not going to be, ‘Turn out the lights and let’s all go home on one day.’ But I do think the American people expect it to be somewhere between that and a few thousand troops.”

The lawsuit comes after 17 states sued EPA for not granting a waiver to let California police its own greenhouse gas automobile emissions. And 18 states have more broadly sued the agency for not following the Supreme Court ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA, that says greenhouse gases must be regulated if they’re a public hazard.

Why does EPA continue to take no action on global warming? It’s not clear since EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has withheld greenhouse gas documents from Congress, using a presidential assertion of executive privilege. The House oversight committee is likely to challenge that assertion when Congress returns next month.

But with Congress in sessions for just three more weeks this year, lawsuits may prove the most effective path to undoing Bush’s EPA.