Oct. 24, 2005 issue - I have a novel idea for the Bush administration. Let's give a medal to someone who's actually done a good job. My candidate would be Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, who has been doing yeoman service there. Last week he snatched a small victory from the jaws of defeat by getting the largest organized Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, to agree with the Shia and Kurds on amendments to the new Iraqi constitution. The effect of these amendments was to lessen the import of Saturday's vote for the constitution. The constitution can now be amended at will by the next Iraqi Parliament, which will be elected on Dec. 15. In other words, if the constitution fails, it will be rewritten, and if it succeeds, it can be rewritten.

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While the cameras and media attention focused on Saturday's polls, Iraq's political parties—Sunni, Shia and Kurd—have begun organizing for the main event, the December election. Former prime minister Ayad Allawi, a smart, tough politician, already speaks mostly of that election in his public statements. October's poll ratifies words; December's poll distributes power.

The constitution as written already throws many crucial issues forward to the next Parliament. For example, it says that the oil revenues of the country are to be shared between the provinces and the central government. But it leaves the details of the revenue-sharing to be decided after Dec. 15. Ambiguities like that one—and there are dozens of them—mean that all groups have to be well represented in the next Parliament. This is especially true for the Sunnis. And even those Sunnis opposed to the constitution are organizing to gain seats in December.

Khalilzad's diplomacy is one part of a general shift in administration strategy that began more than a year ago but has accelerated considerably in Bush's second term. The debilitating power struggles between the State and Defense departments have ended in favor of State. Iraq policy is now less ideological and more pragmatic. Having disbanded the Army and de-Baathified the country, we are now devoting considerable attention to bringing the Sunnis back into the political mainstream. Having dismissed the importance of tribal leaders, we are now aligning with them to bring peace and stability.

This shift could be seen in microcosm in a report last week in The Wall Street Journal on the town of Tall Afar. Tall Afar was an insurgent stronghold, where last month American and Iraqi forces launched a major operation, killing and arresting hundreds. But to avoid the mistakes of the past, when cities were won only to be lost again in a few months, the commanding officer of the American squadron, Lt. Col. Chris Hickey, spent a great deal of time, energy and attention constructing a local political order that would hold. That meant empowering both the Sunnis and Shiites. Hickey reached out to the main Sunni tribal sheik, a man who only a few months earlier had been considered an insurgent leader and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib. "Reconciliation is the key to this thing," explained Col. H. R. McMaster, commander of U.S. forces in north-western Iraq. "This insurgency depends on sectarian tension to move and operate." McMaster articulates a strategy that is part military and part political.

Many military experts have weighed in on the need for a better counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq—one that defends towns and regions, thus securing people's lives, rather than simply killing bad guys. In fact, that strategy is being adopted, using Iraqi troops and local leaders as the crucial ingredients to keeping the peace. That's why conditions in several key trouble spots in Iraq—Sadr City, Mosul, Fallujah, Najaf and Tall Afar—are much, much better than they were a year ago. There is a general recognition even among many Shiite leaders that a purely military strategy will not defeat the insurgency.

Iraq is still in rough shape, but the Bush administration's strategy has moved in the right direction. The biggest stumbling block right now is not the American government but the Iraqi government, which has been dysfunctional. Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has proved to be a decent but utterly ineffectual man heading a lame-duck administration. The parties that have been herded into the current coalition government disagree constantly. No one wants to make any bold moves. December's election should produce a stronger government, perhaps even one that is less religious in its orientation.

Everyone is looking for a moment when they can say, "Iraq is working," or "Iraq is failing." But as satisfying as that might be for supporters and opponents of the war, reality is more messy. And it just got messier. Iraq's politics have gone from being a single snapshot—taken on Oct. 15— which would set in stone the character of the new Iraq, to a movie, in which the negotiations and bargaining will persist for months, perhaps even longer. But this longer, drawn-out process might be a better way to sort out the contentious issues that divide Iraq's various groups. I'm still hoping that it's a movie with a happy ending.

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