US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced he favors “a pause” in the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. In part, this is not good news. The sooner foreign troops get out of Iraq, the better. On the other hand, Washington remains understandably unconvinced that the Iraqi government is sufficiently organized and effective to take over and decide what ought to be its duties in the maintenance of law and order.

Thanks in large measure to the decision by Sunni tribal leaders to root out the Al-Qaeda groups that had been hiding in their midst, those groups have been forced in large measure out of their original strongholds in and around Baghdad. They are now focusing their activities in mixed Arab and Kurdish communities as the recent attacks in Mosul demonstrate.

The US military has taken advantage of the Sunni decision to change its tactics to confront more effectively the groups allied with Al-Qaeda. Five years too late, the policy of “hearts and minds” is now atop the list of US priorities. That means American soldiers are getting out of their fortified camps and heavily armored vehicles and actually talking to people. Under Gen. Petraeus, this fundamental tactic is said to be paying dividends and, according to the US military, locals are giving information about any suspicious strangers in their neighborhoods.

It is important, however, to remember that the US surge was not supposed to crush the resistance completely, but rather to give the national unity government of Premier Nouri Al-Maliki the space to advance the political process — without which nothing else is going to stick. Maliki’s only achievement so far has been the reversal of the US-sponsored catastrophic de-Baathification order. The Iraqi Parliament in January passed the Accountability and Justice Act. Much other key nation-building legislation also awaits Parliament but is not being tabled. This is because Maliki has demonstrated an alarming lack of will to work with his political partners, not least the office of the president, Jalal Talabani.

To call Iraqi politics complex is an understatement and there are some extremists within the process who still imagine that one community can prevail over the others. Even in the face of these challenges, however, Maliki could have done more to create consensus and honor the important responsibility that has been given him. Instead little but muddle, incompetence and indecision has come out of government offices deep in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Last August the Americans thought that they had finally got Maliki moving, in particular in working properly with Talabani. But there is every sign that the gap has once again opened up.

There is no denying that the position of the Maliki government is far from enviable. Despite all the talk of democracy and “purple fingers,” the elections that brought the present government into power were held under military occupation and so long as foreign troops remain in Iraq, the government will lack legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people.