when david petraeus appeared monday at trump tower for a meeting with the president-elect, the headlines naturally fixated on whether the retired army general and former cia chief would serve as secretary of state for the incoming administration. certainly mr. trump<u+2019>s choice here will be one of his most consequential cabinet picks. but the appearance of mr. petraeus carries an even more striking implication. because his presence is a reminder of a painful truth that mr. trump, barack obama and hillary clinton all found easier to ignore throughout the 2016 election campaign. the truth is this: america is still at war in iraq. all throughout the campaign, mr. trump rightly thumped both president obama and mrs. clinton for their refusal to use the i-word<u+2014>islamist<u+2014>when speaking of the terror threat against the american people. but when it came to the w-word<u+2014>war<u+2014>mr. trump was not much better. in three presidential debates, neither mr. trump nor mrs. clinton used the word war to describe the fighting in iraq in which our troops are now engaged. when they did use the word, the context was almost always frozen in 2002. there are political reasons for this. mrs. clinton, for example, is well aware that the bernie sanders wing of her party regards her as a latter-day dr. strangelove. so when she did talk about war and iraq, it was mostly to declare that her senate vote to authorize it was a mistake she deeply regrets. mr. trump mostly fixated on the past as well. on almost every occasion the iraq war came up, mr. trump used the opportunity to insist he<u+2019>d opposed it from the start. unfortunately this obsession with re-litigating the invasion of iraq tells us nothing about where we are today in iraq, much less about what u.s. policy should be going forward. even president obama has been forced to reconsider his approach by realities on the ground, notwithstanding earlier claims that the wars in iraq and afghanistan are behind us. characteristically, he<u+2019>s chosen to adjust on the sly, by slowing down u.s. troop withdrawals from afghanistan and sneaking american forces back into iraq. the truth today is that the middle east mr. trump inherits is more violent and less stable than the one mr. obama inherited from george w. bush in 2009. perhaps the best thing mr. trump could do in his inaugural address would be to acknowledge the reality mr. obama has tried to hide: after eight years of an administration that prides itself on getting america out of wars, we are going back in. unfortunately, under mr. obama we are not doing so honestly. as gen. jack keane recently noted in an interview with national public radio, despite calling the defeat of islamic state his top priority, president obama has not asked his commanders for a plan to do so. over on capitol hill, meanwhile, the chairman of the house armed services committee, mac thornberry, points out that the president isn<u+2019>t paying for his troops either, even as he expands their mission. on top of this, for months the obama administration couldn<u+2019>t even bring itself to admit that american troops killed by islamic state were combat deaths. for his part mr. trump has been somewhat vague on iraq and the middle east, here claiming he knows more than the generals, there saying his solution for islamic state would be to take their oil and <u+201c>bomb the s<u+2014>t out of them.<u+201d> the idea seems to be that america is bogged down in iraq and afghanistan because we couldn<u+2019>t mind our own business. the more hopeful news is he<u+2019>s also promised that in the first 30 days in office his commanders would produce a plan to defeat islamic state. since his election, mr. trump has been hearing from the men who could do it. these include the architect of the successful iraq surge, gen. petraeus; the no-nonsense marine general who has fought in both afghanistan and iraq, gen. james mattis ; a former obama defense intelligence chief, gen. mike flynn ; and of course, gen. keane, an adviser to president bush who was among the first to call for the surge in iraq. as he charts his course mr. trump would be wise to listen to the generals whose advice mr. obama spurned. in so doing, mr. trump would also do well to let go of the mistakes of the past<u+2014>whether bush<u+2019>s or obama<u+2019>s<u+2014>and refrain from the blame game that constituted much of mr. obama<u+2019>s approach in iraq. the facts on the ground are now different, and so must be the response. mr. thornberry<u+2019>s office reports that there are today 5,262 u.s. troops in iraq and syria, and 8,448 in afghanistan. for these americans, it doesn<u+2019>t matter who was right in 2002, 2007 or even 2016. what matters to them is whether their incoming commander in chief will acknowledge that president obama has left them fighting a war largely hidden from public view. and will give them the opportunity and wherewithal to win it. write to mcgurn@wsj.com.
the war that dare not speak its name - wsj
william mcgurn