Change is afoot in Iraq though you would not guess it from listening to U.S. presidential campaign rhetoric, which often has a tenuous relation with reality. 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 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 have 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 the power of Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi army and other Shiite militias. After an initial setback they proved unexpectedly successful, seizing large arms caches in both cities. Though 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 GIs, that locals see enforcing security in their neighborhoods.

The government of Nouri al-Maliki has also been flexing its muscles in relation to the United States over the status of forces agreement under which U.S. troops would operate in Iraq after the end of 2008 when the current U.N. mandate expires.

So far no agreement has been reached largely because the Maliki government was not prepared to simply roll over and accept U.S. demands unquestioningly. Instead it is demanding that Iraqi sovereignty be treated as a political reality and no longer an abstraction. And with the oil price rise and Iraqi oil exports up, the government has a lot more money at its disposal.

None of these changes are reflected in the language of the two U.S. presidential candidates.

Dem. Sen. Barack Obama is still hashing over the mistaken decisions that led to the invasion of Iraq. As president he proposes to rectify that mistake by bringing U.S. troops home as quickly as reasonably possible, and anyhow within 16 months. The policy gives little consideration to the changing Iraqi context. 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.

Rep. Sen. John McCain remains locked in the rhetoric of "winning" the war in Iraq, as if U.S. troops remain locked in struggle with Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia. But the struggle and the players in it have changed. It is no longer primarily military.

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.