A rash of recent bombings and terrorist attacks have raised fears that violence has been kept down by the U.S. presence, and that it will spike as our forces there are drawn down. There are valid concerns that Iraqi security forces are not up to the high standards of the U.S. military, or that Iraq could lapse back into civil war. But those risks will be there if U.S. troops stay for five years, or 50. The future of Iraq lies with the people of Iraq, and the Iraqi government, and it is well past the time when they must take the reins.

Of course, the same thing could be said of many other countries and governments around the world. If President Obama lives up to his promise to end the war, and bring all the troops home, it could signal a willingness to truly change the course of U.S. foreign policy in a direction that advances U.S. security, and at far less cost than our current strategy.

Americans want, and will support, change. What they should not tolerate is the status quo: countless solemn pledges of burden sharing -- of allowing others to stand up so that we can stand down -- that are never fulfilled. For decades, the United States has been in the business of doing for other governments what they should be doing for themselves. Now would be a good time to start to change this pattern.

Iraq is a test case for this change. Nothing that happens there should divert us from a new course.

That said, I thought the president hit the essential points without overpromising. He did not ignore that which divides the United States from the world at large, and many Muslims in particular, nor was he afraid to address squarely the lies and distortions — including the implication that 9/11 never happened, or was not the product of al Qaeda — that have made the situation worse than it should be. He stressed the common interests that should draw people to support U.S. policies rather than oppose them: these include our opposition to the use of violence against innocents; our support for democracy and self-government; and our hostility toward racial, ethnic or religious intolerance. All good.

Two particular comments jumped out at me (the speech text can be found here):

1. The president clearly stated his goals for the U.S. military presence in Iraq. He pledged to "honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically-elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July," "the removal of our combat brigades by next August," and "to remove all our troops from Iraq by 2012."

This might not seem like much. As noted, it is the established policy of the U.S. government and the Iraqi government under the status of forces agreement. Some recent comments by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, however, implied that U.S. troops might remain in Iraq for a decade. I'm glad that the president cleared up the confusion.

2. President Obama wisely connected U.S. policy in the 21st century to its founding principles from the earliest days to remind his audience — or perhaps to teach them for the very first time — that the United States was not now, nor ever has been, at war with Islam, or with any other religion. George Washington affirmed the importance of religious equality in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. President Obama quoted John Adams, who saw no reason why the United States could not enjoy good relations with Morocco, the first country to recognize the United States. When signing the Treaty of Tripoli, Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."

But the president also drew on the Founders to convey a broader message. They believed that the new nation should advance human rights and the cause of liberty by its example, not by military force. Some of our recent leaders seem to have forgotten that, and a few pundits have actually scorned the suggestion. The president wisely cast his lot with the earlier generation, quoting Thomas Jefferson who said "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

A key test case is the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian dispute, where the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is the key stumbling bloc to a resumption of serious negotiations.

The president will also want to talk about Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. In the latter two cases, the president should reaffirm that his overriding objective is in helping the Iraqi and Afghan governments defend their own people, and that the U.S. government does not desire an open-ended military presence in either country.

With respect to Iran, presidential elections are less than two weeks away, and President Obama isn’t alone in hoping that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s days in power are numbered. But Obama was right to take a wait-and-see approach to Iran, and he should urge other countries in the region to do the same until after June 12th.

Finally, in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, President Obama has previously stated the U.S. government’s opposition to the expansion of Israeli settlements. He might now spell out what additional steps he is willing to take to stop this activity, while at the same time emphasizing that the United States cannot want peace more than the parties to the conflict.

They shouldn't be surprised, however. Obama always qualified his call for ending the Iraq war by stipulating that a residual force would remain behind, and John McCain's endorsement of the Obama plan is further proof of the bipartisan support in Washington for a policy that Americans outside the Beltway turned against long ago.

Democrats in Congress were unable to force George W. Bush to end the war, and they seem unlikely to challenge a president from their own party. Ironically, we have Iraqi lawmakers to thank for endorsing an agreement between the Maliki government and the outgoing Bush administration that puts pressure on President Obama to remove all U.S. military personnel from Iraq by a date certain. The Obama White House has said that they will abide by that agreement. "The path we're on here, the path is not towards any sort of a Korea model," a senior administration official told the New York Times. "The path is towards reducing, in a fairly substantial way, U.S. forces in 2010 and then down to what's currently anticipated, down to zero, by the end of 2011."

If President Obama keeps to that course, we can be confident that the war will eventually come to an end—just not nearly as quickly as the vast majority of Americans had wished.