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Welcome to the QuagmireThe next president may be stuck with more problems in Iraq than Bush ever faced.

By Fred KaplanPosted Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008, at 7:22 PM ET

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The first part of Fallon's idea—the pause—is nothing new. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for such a pause in December after returning from a trip to Baghdad. Before the trip, Gates had been talking about continuing the drawdown of troops from today's 20 combat brigades to the 15 that would remain after the surge brigades go back home in July and to 10 by the end of the year. He changed his tune after Gen. Petraeus told him that he might not be able to keep securing the Iraqi people with such a small force. Hence the "pause."

But the second part of Fallon's remark—the idea that the pause should be brief, just long enough to allow "all the dust to settle," after which the drawdown will resume—is a new wrinkle. Perhaps reflecting Petraeus' caution that 10 brigades won't be enough to sustain the U.S. mission in Iraq, Fallon says that the U.S. mission will be scaled back along with the forces. In an interview with the Times' Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, Fallon says that he is advocating a strategy that would "transfer more and more responsibility for security in Iraq to Iraqi security forces and, at the same time, withdrawing a substantial amount of our combat forces." The U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, he added, would mostly play the roles of "supporting, sustaining, advising, training, and mentoring"—not so much fighting or providing security.

This is a major distinction. Do Fallon's remarks reflect the views of the Bush administration or of Secretary Gates? Certainly there is, and has long been, a tension between the institutional Army and some of the commanders in the field over this very question. The former has always been skeptical about extending the war in Iraq. Senior officers are concerned that the lengthy and repeated tours of duty, especially the toll it has taken on the retention of junior officers and the recruitment of new enlistees, might break the Army. The latter brush aside those concerns and focus on what they need to accomplish their combat missions. Gates has found himself straddling this tension—very concerned about the health of the Army but also worried about the chances of failure in Iraq.

Fallon occupies an in-between position on the bureaucratic chart. He's a sort of warrior-executive—the commander of U.S. Central Command, with headquarters in Tampa, Fla.—but, as such, he's also the senior-most combatant commander, ranking just above Petraeus. (It's unusual that the head of CentCom is a Navy admiral, but that may have reflected a desire to put an officer of broader standing in charge.)

Do Fallon's statements herald a victory for the institutional Army—and a confirmation of Gates' initial instincts? Or do they mark a ratcheting-up of the tension?

In any case, if Fallon's strategy does prevail, the next president—whoever he or she is—may be relieved. A decision will have been made, under George W. Bush's tenure, to scale back America's military mission and to keep drawing down its military forces after the surge.

But two bits of caution should be noted. First, this does not necessarily mean a winding-down of the war—or of America's involvement in it. Gates and others, in fact, have favored significant troop reductions from Iraq precisely in order to build popular support for a long-term U.S. military presence there.

Second, the question remains: What happens if, after the withdrawals, all hell breaks loose—an especially likely prospect if the Sunni Awakening collapses and Sadr calls off his cease-fire? Do we send more troops back in? Do we accelerate the withdrawal? Do we engage in diplomacy to lure neighboring countries to help tamp down the violence? And what do we offer them in exchange for finally helping us out?

John McCain has said he wouldn't mind staying in Iraq for 100 years. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to pull out a brigade or two a month though ultimately keep some of them in Iraq—and still others in the region—to keep fighting al-Qaida, training the Iraqi security forces, and so forth.

The way things are going, the next president, whatever his or her preferences, may be stuck with more severe problems than Bush ever was—and will almost certainly have to make decisions that are harder.