By listening to the presidential campaign rhetoric or watching the nightly news, one would not guess that the reality on the ground in Iraq is changing.

Security has improved significantly. Last month, for the first time, fewer U.S. troops were killed in Iraq than in Afghanistan. The numbers of Iraqi citizens killed has also dropped markedly, though it remains unacceptably high. This change is clearly reversible but the people in Iraq and in the region are starting to believe in it.

Businesses are opening in former no-go areas in Baghdad and Basra. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan said they plan to appoint ambassadors to Baghdad. The UAE foreign minister commented: "the regional countries needed some time to understand the new Iraq, which has undergone a big change."

The Iraqi army moved into Basra and then Sadr City in Baghdad to crush Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army and other Shi'i militias. After initial setbacks they proved unexpectedly successful, seizing large arms caches in both cities.
Although the Iraqis cannot yet operate successfully without U.S. and British artillery and air support, they were front and center when it came to boots on the ground.

Now there are 30,000 Iraqi soldiers in Basra, critical for control of Iraq's oil
exports. It is their faces, not those of American and British soldiers, that locals see enforcing security in their neighborhoods.

None of these changes are reflected in the language of the two U.S. presidential candidates or in the mainstream media.  Barack Obama is still hashing over the mistaken decisions that led to the invasion of Iraq as if he could undo reality and proceed with policy by pretending it is 2003.

As president he proposes to rectify that mistake by bringing U.S. troops home as quickly as possible, and anyhow within 16 months. The policy gives little consideration to the changing Iraqi context and is in fact not a policy at all - it's merely a retreat with no plan for the day after. Iraq's foreign minister met with Obama recently and argued that a precipitate withdrawal of U.S. troops would be disastrous for Iraq – and America. 

John McCain remains locked in the rhetoric of "winning" the war in Iraq, as if U.S. troops should remain locked in the struggle between Sunni insurgents and the Shi'i militias. But the struggle and the players in it have changed. It is no longer primarily military.

It is a sad question to ask - is the average voting American so stupid that s/he can't understand nuance and must have the Iraq situation presented to him/her as a choice between staying and retreating or winning and losing?

The task for any responsible U.S. government now is to help Iraq's government to move quickly along its present course to where it can run the country effectively and independently. Both campaigns need to address that issue.

Now that the surge has begun to work in Iraq, ordinary Iraqis are growing sick of suicide bombings and sectarian violence, and positive progress is being made, the nightly news has taken a leave of absence on the story. 

The media has a responsibility to report progress in Iraq.  Their mandate should go beyond focusing on the bad and reporting on scandals. Sometimes they should report the whole picture so that the American voter can form opinions based on reports that reflect reality.