Jon Alterman

Iraqi politics are in a delicate state. There's no Iraqi support for the country becoming a principal U.S. garrison in the Middle East.

There's a large constituency the president has that thinks it would be lunacy to go to war against Iran, there's a large part of his base that thinks the craziest thing we could do is committing ourselves to endless wars in the Middle East.

It feels a little bit as if the approach is to 'talk loudly and carry a small stick,' you could read this as obscuring a continued U.S. retrenchment from Middle Eastern commitments.

Ultimately, he’s selling a dream and he’s still not offering a plan. He’s representing the sales office, but he’s given no clue of who will be the architect and who will do the construction.

It may strengthen our hand getting other countries to help. It may free us against some (legal) constraints, but the reality is that when you are fighting somebody, you don't need another reason to fight them.

There's a military campaign that the U.S. is helping wage, but it has more internal problems than I think people on either side are willing to admit, the reality is what we are trying to do is very difficult, very complicated and many people question how unified we are with the Iraqi government on what we are trying to do.

What strikes me with all the calls President Joe Biden has had is they are very intentional. They are done for a purpose -- you understand what the goal is, you understand what the outcome is ; it's part of a broader strategy, what The President does is tightly integrated with The President team and with the intentions and strategies of the US government.