A lot was made — both in Iraq and in the United States — of Vice President Biden’s recent admonition to the Iraqis that unless they made progress on sectarian reconciliation, they shouldn’t count on consistent U.S. aid. Some saw it as a necessary bit of pressure; others considered it a contradiction of last year’s Strategic Framework Agreement, a document that spells out the terms for a post-occupation partnership. O’Sullivan, writing in The Washington Post, sees rhetoric that’s frozen in the bad old days of — well, of her tenure as White House Iraq director:

[T]he reality is that Iraq’s most difficult problems are primarily about substantive issues. Iraqis and their leaders are divided on fundamental questions about the nature of the state — specifically, whether the locus of power should be in Baghdad or in the provinces. Should Iraq be a more traditional Arab state, where power is centralized in the capital? Or should the regions and the provinces — i.e., the [Kurdistan Regional Government] — have substantial authorities and autonomy?

She has a point. During the political maneuvering following the provincial elections earlier this year, the sectarian dynamics in Iraq began to scramble for the first time since the political architecture set up by the U.S. occupation inadvertently entrenched a Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish division. It’s not as if Iraq is in a post-sectarian phase yet. But identity questions are no longer the decisive questions about Iraqi politics the way they were when O’Sullivan — generally considered one of the more reality-based of Bush’s Iraq aides — was in the White House. (There’s not a lot of self-reflection in her op-ed about how the Iraq policies she helped shape contributed to the sectarianism she urges the Obama administration to see beyond; but get used to that from former Bush officials.)  And with new national elections coming up, it makes sense to treat substantive politics as more important than those identity questions.

“Now I have instructed, in consultation with clergy of the country, that the law be revised and any article that is not in keeping with the Afghan constitution and Islamic Sharia must be removed from this law,” Karzai said.

Juan Cole:

The government’s pledge to amend the law so as to forbid marital rape misses the point. Afghanistan has a civil code on personal status, and all citizens should be under it.

Every year at this time, Sunni terrorists attempt mass murder of Shiite pilgrims on their way to the holy city of Karbala for the Arbaeen holiday. Last year was the safest Arbaeen since the 2003 invasion, thanks to the troop surge. This Arbaeen is off to an awful start. The United Nations’ chief representative to Iraq called the bombings “clearly designed to provoke sectarian tensions,” which seems correct.

Bruce Hoffmann, unsurprisingly, disagrees with the entire premise of Timmerman’s question. The Anbar Awakening, which started before the surge, was more important than the surge, Hoffman says, though he adds that the “surge clearly mattered.” More centrally, “Al Qaeda has always seen Iraq as a diversion,” he adds, to buy time for Al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan.

Steve Coll, who wrote “Ghost Wars” and “The Bin Ladens,” agrees, and adds that the victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq is more properly seen as a victory for Iraqis.

And if I can add: Timmerman should be happy that’s the case! Regardless of the immediate politics of the moment, it’s unquestionably better for the long-term war against Al Qaeda if Muslims defeat Al Qaeda. That’s the truest strategic victory there is: an indigenous, authentic, irrefutable setback for the jihadist entity, emanating precisely from the people it’s playing for.

For Americans to claim credit for it is truly to commit a counterproductive category error. (Well, that is, unless the true goal here is to sanctify George W. Bush instead of defeating bin Laden.) Focus, right-wingers, focus!