It appears certain that the United States will begin withdrawing troops from Iraq this year, given the peaceful elections for provincial ruling councils that the country held. If that happens, the United States will have escaped one unnecessarily open-ended commitment while yet another looms.

In Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama reportedly will send an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, amid signs that his administration is generally rethinking this country's strategy. This follows a Rand Corp. report that says U.S. strategy is in need of "game-changing" steps to bolster the faltering international effort in Afghanistan.

For what such a plan should look like, we commend for Obama's reading a recent column in our Sunday Crossroads section by Neamat Nojumi. The Defense Department adviser and author of a book on the Taliban argued for a more regional approach, including China and Russia in political solutions in Afghanistan and making Pakistan more accountable for the considerable U.S. aid sent its way.

His point: There's more to winning a war than fighting. So, also required reading is a column by Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria. His most intriguing proposal involves talking with the Taliban. This, he wrote, is not the same as talking to al-Qaida.

"We have significant differences with the Taliban on many issues. ... But we do not wage war on other Islamist groups with which we similarly disagree (the Saudi monarch, for instance)," he wrote. "Were elements of the Taliban to abandon al-Qaida, we would not have a pressing national security interest in waging war against them."

This makes sense.

Obama has been correct in drawing the distinction between Afghanistan as the necessary war and Iraq as the war of choice begun on untruths.

Necessary, however, doesn't have to equal open-ended. And without a broader strategy than increased military effort, this is what this war could become.