This week, Washington hosted a U.S.-Iraqi business conference, which featured such notables as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s national security advisor. The message was clear: Iraq is a vibrant country now filled with investment opportunities! Get in on the ground floor!

Here’s what Clinton had to say:  “We believe strongly that Iraq is a land where generations of scientists, doctors, astronomers, engineers built a tradition of scholarship and inquiry that lives on in the Iraqi people today.  And now is the time for both Iraq and its friends, like the United States, to demonstrate how there can be a new, more prosperous, peaceful future for Iraq.”

There’s just one problem: The department that Hillary runs says in its travel advisory that Iraq remains a dangerous place for Americans. The advisory, last updated in June, begins by saying, “The Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens of the dangers inherent in travel to Iraq and recommends against all but essential travel in country given the fluid security situation.  Numerous insurgent groups remain active throughout Iraq.  Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)-led military operations continue, and attacks persist against the ISF and U.S. forces in many areas of the country.”

So which is it? Is Iraq a place where Americans should consider exploring new business opportunities or a place one should not travel to except for essential reasons?

This weekend, we expect to hear that the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission will call for a run off presidential election , saying that while the U.S. backed-incumbent Hamid Karzai won 54.6 percent of the vote, too many of those ballots were fraudulent, and therefore he didn’t get the majority of votes. The top two candidates, Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, should therefore face a run off.

But will this lead to more political stability or less?

At best, the run off will be held off in about a month, during Afghanistan’s brutal winter, which will mean lower turn out.  Moreover, many Afghans dismiss the process entirely calling their election system inherently fraud. That is, their vote is no more likely to count the next time as it did the first. This piece captures the sentiment amongst Afghans beautifully.

Many, particularly the Americans, had hoped Karzai and Abdullah would agree to some kind of reconciliation government so that the run off would not be necessary precisely because of the reasons listed.

Before the election, officials here in Washington insisted that it was critical that the elections be seen as legitimate. That now seems impossible. I can’t help but wonder if in hindsight, Afghanistan should have been declared a state of emergency until the country could better hold elections.

Either way, most agree the Obama administration cannot seriously consider its options in Afghanistan until this weekend’s announcement. So for all the meetings and discussions, in some ways the debate about what the United States should do next in Afghanistan, amidst rising violence and a resurgent Taliban, starts anew this weekend. It will all hinge on what the commission says and how the candidates and their supporters respond.

Thanks to Peter, a thoughtful reader, a true newhound who sent me a story about a very important development over the weekend on the other side of the pond. The British Army confirmed that its top Afghanistan commander for its 8,000 troops serving there, Maj. Gen. Andrew Mackay, resigned for “personal” reasons.  But according to some reports, he resigned because he felt his troops were not getting the kind of support, both in terms of equipment and strategy, that they need and deserve.

The Independent reported that he was disturbed by a “lack of clear policy.” And the Times piece says that he felt his repeated warnings of the state of the war went unanswered.

(As an aside, Britain’s Sun newspaper reports that Mackay was Prince Harry’s commander during his brief stint of service in Helmand province.)

Mackay presided over the deadliest year for British troops since the war began more than eight years ago, including the death of seven British troops in one week. That deadly July week sparked a nationwide protest over the British involvement in the Afghanistan war.

Mackay is the fifth British commander in Afghanistan in two years.

What does this portend for the rest of the coalition? Many countries – including Germany, Canada and Italy – are facing growing opposition within their populace about the war in Afghanistan. I fear that as the United States contemplates the way ahead in Afghanistan, it may also increasingly have to consider going at it largely on its own.

The Wall Street Journal had this fabulous piece about some of the books members of the Obama administration are grabbing from D.C. bookstore selves as they consider a new Afghanistan strategy. Believe it or not, what books leaders have sitting on their bedside is an interesting barometer of how they are thinking about the challenges before them. And according to the Journal piece, the Obama administration is looking at Afghanistan through the prism of Vietnam; both books mentioned in the piece study the civilian and military leaders of that war, particularly in the second half of the conflict.

 “Lessons of Disaster” dissects the failings of McGeorge Bundy’s leadership from his eyes; “A Better War” celebrates Creighton Abrams’ leadership.

I know this may seem like a trivial discussion topic, but I think it is telling. Consider the Bush administration reading list. Among the books people like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld turned to was “Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime” by Eliot Cohen.

I just read that book, and it is a fascinating read indeed. It looks at how Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill and David Ben Gurion led during wartime.  Each war and leader are different indeed, but Cohen eloquently ties the leaders’ experiences together. What he concludes ultimately is that generals are too often more confident then they should be, and as such ask for more troops and weapons then they should. So it falls on the civilian leaders to keep them in check.  It is not a surprising conclusion coming from a hawk like Cohen, one could argue.

Soon Rumsfeld and Cheney were arguing for a streamlined military. Rumsfeld said that the military needed far fewer troops than the generals said. And the era of military transformation was born. 

So what does this administration’s reading list tell us? Perhaps that they know that for all the planning, meeting and strategizing, counterinsurgency may hinge on the leaders on the field and in the White House.

As most of you know, Washington is engulfed in a prolonged debate about the way ahead in Afghanistan. It occurs to me that very few have properly articulated to you, dear reader, what is at the heart of the debate. Let me take a stab at it. It gets down to this: What is the current relationship between al Qaida and the Taliban?  The answer to that questions leads to the following question:  Is an Afghanistan under Taliban control really a threat to the security of the United States?

We know of course that the Taliban and al Qaida worked hand-in-hand in the run up to 9/11.  But the relationship isn't really so clear  now.  Back then, the Taliban turned to al Qaida for financial support, for example. Today the Taliban generates, by some estimates, as much as $400 million in annual revenue. Indeed, some believe the Taliban is now subsidizing al Qaida. So if Afghanistan fell to Taliban rule again, we know now  they  need al Qaida  a lot  less than they did eight years ago to survive.  

And according to Ret. Marine Gen. Jim Jones, the National Security Advisor, al Qaida is not as dependent on Afghanistan as it once was.   Before 9/11, al Qaida had large-scale training camps in Afghanistan;  but Jones  said in an interview Sunday with CNN”s John King , that no more than 100 al Qaida operatives work out of Afghanistan  now . The rest have moved to Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Europe and yes, even the United States.  That is, al Qaida needs Afghanistan as a sanctuary less today than it did eight years ago.

Jones also tackled the uncertainty of the relationship between the two groups. He said that the Taliban does not pose a threat to anyone outside of Afghanistan. And he said al Qaida cannot launch any kind of major attack on the United States from Afghanistan. In other words, neither group pose an immediate that, at least within the Afghan border. 

King asked Jones: “Does the return of the Taliban in your view, sir, equal the return of a sanctuary for al Qaida?” 

Jones had a two - word answer: “It could.”   

Well, until that is clear, what the U.S. goals are in Afghanistan remain muddled. 

Without the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, the Taliban might return to power. Should the United States care?  That depends on whether a Taliban victory would mean a welcome for al Qaida. And if the administration determines that the Taliban won’t welcome al Qaida  back, it begs the ultimate question: Why is the United States in Afghanistan?

Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) commander, was diagnosed in February with an early stage prostate cancer and has since received treatment, according to reports that first appeared in the New York Times.

Petraeus, 56, underwent two months of radiation treatment at Walter Reed but continued working, according to a statement. While he notified his chain of command, he is considered it a personal issue and chose to keep it private.

His treatment was successful, the statement said.