Five years is apparently the length of the 21st-century American when it comes to wars.

Over $547 billion spent (as of this post). Over 4,100 United States servicemen and servicewomen dead. Many, many more Iraqi citizens dead. Tens of thousands on both sides whose lives will never be the same due to physical and/or mental injury. No real solution for long-term peace, stability or American military exodus.

But strangely, foreign correspondents are having a harder time than ever getting their stories on the air and in print. (CBS' Lara Logan touched on this last week in an interview for the ages.)

But Americans are changing the channel. That reality show's boring, man.

They much prefer the one starring Barack Obama and John McCain. Survivor: Washington, D.C. is nearing Tribal Council. No immunity idols here. Two men enter, one man leaves.

This is a problem for Obama, as his 2002 stance against the Iraq war is his most potent arrow in his "judgment to lead" quiver, and that argument is central to his theme of change. Though the Surge hasn't succeeded by the political standards set up for it before it began, the decrease in American casualties and increase in the peace in certain Iraqi cities has McCain and company calling it an unvarnished success. So brazen are they that they've tried to make a campaign issue of Obama's continued assertions that the Surge hasn't changed the fact that we should get the hell out of dodge, even though over 70% of Americans thinks it's time to bounce.

In true Republican tradition, an instance of failure is being used as a strength as they try to make the Democratic candidate appear like some cut-and-running little coward. (What's funny here, also, is that McCain is slamming Obama for not changing his mind, even though the Republicans of late have taken a sick pride in being hard-headed. They're dissing Obama for not flip-flopping.)

How does Obama keep Iraq on the front page without seemingly disregarding the "gains" the Republicans are selling to the American people?

By doing what he's best at. Making a speech.

At least that's what Fareed Zakaria says. Some recommendations for the text of said speech:

In 2006, when levels of violence were horrifyingly high, President Bush and Senator McCain said that things were going so badly that if we left, the consequences would be tragic. Today they say that things are going so well that if we leave, the consequences would be tragic. Whatever the conditions, the answer is the same — keep doing what we're doing. How does one say 'Catch-22' in Arabic?...

The surge has produced a considerable decline in violence in Iraq. General Petraeus has accomplished this by using more troops and fighting differently. Perhaps more crucially, he reached out and made a strategic accommodation with many Sunni groups that had once fought U.S. troops. To put it bluntly, he talked to our enemies...

My objective remains to end American combat involvement in Iraq and to do so expeditiously. At some point we are going to have to take off the training wheels in Iraq. I believe that we must have a serious plan that defines when that point is reached. If we define success as an Iraq that looks like France or Holland, we will have to stay indefinitely, continue spending $10 billion a month and keep 140,000 troops in combat. And that is neither acceptable nor sustainable. We will have to accept as success a muddy middle ground — an Iraq that is a functioning, federal democracy with a central government and an army able to tackle the bulk of challenges they face...

The president of the United States is responsible not just for Iraq, not just for the Middle East and West Asia, but for America's interests across the globe. We must make our commitment in Iraq one that is limited, temporary and thus sustainable. And we must also be aware that there is a much larger world out there, with the Taliban in Afghanistan, with Iran's growing ambitions, a rising China, a resurgent Russia, an obstructionist Venezuela. All these require attention. The test of a commander in chief is not to focus obsessively on one battlefield but to keep all of them in view and to use resources and tactics in a way that creates an overall grand strategy, one that keeps the American people safe and the world at peace.

I sincerely hope Obama lures Zakaria away from Newsweek and CNN when he's elected.

He makes four essential points in these excerpts: that the status quo only keeps American soldiers in harm's way; that real progress in Iraq is not built around a month's worth of declining casualty stats and that the solution must address matters that go beyond the military; that "talking to our enemies" is actually how we make progress, both towards Iraqi peace and American extrication; and that plainly put, Iraq cannot be viewed in a vacuum.

Contrast that with what McCain would do.

No, Obama's not going to pull a Kucinich and make some grandstanding appeal to end the war yesterday so as to satisfy the netroots and the far left. Countering in that fashion would be playing directly into the hands of the Republicans. No, Obama's smarter than that. While he may not deliver Zakaria's speech word for word, he needs to take its sentiment to heart. America needs to hear these words from Obama before the GOP stuffs more in his mouth for him.

(Cross-posted here.)