How to Make an Exit

In turn, your administration has struck the right, relatively muted response to the warm welcome given to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Baghdad last week. That is to the good. As Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has repeatedly stressed to you, Iraq has to find ways to live with its large non-Arab neighbor even as the United States tries to contain Iran's influence. Gray, not black or white, is the region's dominant political color.

Paradoxically, the U.S. intelligence community's backpedaling on Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions underscores the advantages of not being the loudest voice in every debate. European governments speak out more often now about Iran's refusal to engage in serious talks with them than they do about your refusal to talk to Iran or to take military action off the table.

You also have a great opportunity to stay on the sideline in the flare-up over Colombia's military strike against a guerrilla camp just inside Ecuador last week. A low presidential profile will help deprive Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's one-trick pony, of a platform to turn this border quarrel into something more threatening than another gringo-bashing exercise.

Chávez would bash you to inflate his nationalist credentials -- which are shown to be stunningly hollow in a revealing article by Francisco Rodriguez, former chief economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly, in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs -- and to obscure the support that he and his Ecuadorian accomplices provide the narco-terrorists of FARC.

So slow down, Mr. President. No sprint needed. You have touched off changes in the international system that will take years or decades to absorb, repair or appreciate, depending on the case.

Concentrate on a couple of things where you can make an immediate difference -- most urgently, the unfolding humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip and the chaotic political and military situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

And for once, take a hint from Bill Clinton's recent experience. Since McCain is your candidate, let him stand in the spotlight alone.

jimhoagland@washpost.com