Some tough words for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on Iraq, from The Washington Post’s staff editorial today:

… The progress since last summer [in Iraq] has been remarkable: In Baghdad, where a sectarian war seemed to be spiraling out of control a year ago, the number of attacks dropped 75 percent from June to last month. U.S. casualties since Oct. 1 are half the average for 2006, and the lowest for any similar period since the war began. But as Gen. Petraeus repeatedly has emphasized, the gains are fragile. It’s not certain that the relative peace in and around Baghdad will hold as American troop levels come down. A pause to weigh the situation – commanders are reportedly thinking of 30 to 90 days – would help ensure that what now looks like an opportunity to stabilize Iraq would not be squandered, along with the American lives sacrificed for it.
Thanks to [Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s] readiness to adjust, it’s more likely that President Bush’s successor will inherit an Iraq that is moving slowly toward stability rather than spiraling into chaos. So it’s worth asking why Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton remain so unwilling to alter their outdated and dogmatic views about the war. Both issued statements Monday denouncing Mr. Gates’s statement and the proposed pause in withdrawals; both stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that the changed situation in Iraq requires a rethinking of their plans for the rapid withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops. As Mr. Gates has recognized, to mechanically yank U.S. forces from Iraq according to a timetable inspired by American domestic politics, just when the troops appear to be succeeding, would be foolhardy as well as dangerous.