I don’t really write about Iraq anymore and I’m not proud of that. I shouldn’t be part of the media’s general contentment with drawing a line under the war now that there’s an extrication strategy in place. I start posts and don’t finish them. Other stuff comes up. I tell myself that other national-security stuff is more relevant or has more of an audience. But then it occurs to me that there’s a dodge involved in that calculation. Musings on Iraq is in the weeds and I’m not, and if absolutely nothing else, I should promote MOI’s stuff.

Anyway. Today Nouri al-Maliki comes to the White House and I thought that provided a good hook to profile Doug Ollivant. Ollivant has more, and more varied, Iraq experience than nearly anyone. He first went to Iraq as a cavalry officer in 2004 and that took him to the war’s hairest places: Najaf during the Sadrist cemetary showdown of August; Fallujah in November for the Marine-led re-invasion; the freakier parts of Baghdad. The experience led him to study counterinsurgency as a way to make sense of it all and wonder how to mitigate the damage. He would return to Iraq in 2006 and become part of the Petraeus Brain Trust during the surge, serving as planning chief for the division entrusted with securing Baghdad, the heart of the effort. In March of 2008 he very surprisingly went to the National Security Council as one of the Iraq directors trusted with corralling a sprawling and disorganized interagency effort to secure the tactical gains of the surge. He left last month. Read all about his thoughts on where Iraq, and the U.S.-Iraqi relationship goes next, at the Washington Independent.

So here’s my question to you: do you want to read more about Iraq? I promise it up on this blog’s logo. But I haven’t heard any complaints for neglecting the war. Should I write more about Iraq? And if you think I should, what subjects within that sprawling category do you want to read about?