President Barack ObamaFor the last several months, President Obama has been trying to answer Sen. Obama's questions. The president's Afghanistan strategy review has been focused on the same issues Obama raised with Condoleezza Rice in January 2007, when he was on the Senate foreign relations committee and she was testifying about the troop surge in Iraq. Sen. Obama wanted to know how the president was going to force a reluctant partner to perform and when the president would say "enough is enough" if progress wasn't made.

Obama focused then on the three C's (he didn't call them that because he doesn't like gimmicks): contract, conditions, and consequences. Was there a contract between the American and Iraqi governments that included agreed-upon benchmarks the Iraqis promised to...