Our guest blogger is Brian Katulis, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Iraq conference I attended last week in Europe brought together an interesting mix of Iraqi thinkers and leaders, and I already mentioned the former Iraqi national security adviser’s personal views on the Afghanistan surge and the current acting national security advisor’s concerns about civilian control over the military, among other issues. Last week’s conference provided food for thought about some of the emerging challenges in Iraq. Here are five key issues as they are discussed today, with a brief analysis of how Iraqis are starting to look beyond these immediate questions to longer-term issues.

1. 2010 elections and Iraq’s emerging politics. Which parties will emerge on top in next March’s election? What governing coalition is formed between Iraq’s diverse political groups, who will lead the coalition, and will the losers accept their defeat peacefully?

As we’ve previously argued, the 2007-2008 “surge” has not yet delivered on bridging fundamental political divisions in Iraq — Iraq’s political transition and reconciliation remain stalled, and basic questions about how to share power left unanswered in the 2005 constitution are still unresolved. In the election debates, will political actors in Iraq create a new spectrum of thinking in Iraqi politics, or will they remain entrenched in their current positions? Or will more political actors simply offer up vague platitudes about unity, as happened in last January’s provincial elections?

2. Arab-Kurdish divisions. What are the security measures necessary to manage and resolve the Arab-Kurdish tensions in Kirkuk and the disputed territories? How will Iraq move forward with the proposed population census?

The census has been discussed for a long time, and immediately after the March 2010 elections there may be some steps taken to move forward on the census. Getting an accurate count of which Iraqis live where — more accurate than exists with the food ration card — could become even more sensitive as the possibility of a census approaches.

3. Oil production. Will Iraq attract the foreign investment necessary to increase its production and will the Iraqi government pass the oil and revenue sharing laws? How will other major oil producing countries, particularly neighboring Saudi Arabia, react to the very real possibility in the coming decade that Iraq reemerges as a major producer?

Some analysts at the conference indicated that one implication of increased Iraqi oil production is that it could increase tensions within OPEC countries, an issue raised in this article last week.

4. Security forces in Iraq. Will Iraqi security forces be able to take control as U.S. forces depart in the next two years? What does Iraq’s overall security apparatus look like and how integrated is that system into a broader regional security framework?

As Iraq’s acting national security adviser mentioned, the size and capacity of Iraqi security forces have increased to the point where some are raising sustainability questions and what impact those forces have on Iraqi society. A related question is how coordinated and integrated Iraq’s security apparatus is with the rest of the region — a question complicated by continued uncertainties such as the role of Iran and how Arab Gulf countries react to both Iran’s moves and Iraq’s reemergence in the region.

5. U.S.-Iraq bilateral relations. Will U.S. forces depart according to the timetable outlined in the security agreement? Will the United States and Iraq move forward with the strategic framework agreement, and what does the U.S.-Iraq bilateral relationship look like in 2012 and beyond?

Mowaffak al-Rubaie made the case at the conference that the security agreement and the separate strategic framework agreement signed between the United States and Iraq last year were designed as linked together – the strategic framework agreement outlines a comprehensive plan for diplomatic, economic, cultural, and institutional development cooperation between the two countries, where as the security agreement outlined the rules governing the presence of U.S. forces starting in 2009.

Many Iraqis at the conference expressed concern that their country had faded as a priority in the United States. As a result, the implementation of the strategic framework agreement was weak, and some Iraqis at the conference made the point that this lack of follow through could lead Iraq to look elsewhere for partners. Where Iraq fits in the broader strategy of the United States in the Middle East remains an unanswered question, in large part because the Obama administration has not yet presented a comprehensive regional strategy.

Last month, twelve U.S. Senators delivered a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano attacking the Obama administration for continuing to push an agenda that contains comprehensive immigration reform during “these troubled economic times.” Twenty more of their colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to President Obama asking him to expand harsh and costly immigration enforcement tactics, claiming such action would reduce the unemployment rate.

However, a report released today by America’s Voice shows that many of the representatives who oppose immigration in defense of the American worker have actually voted against the interests of hard-working Americans time and time again. Eighteen of the 20 House members who signed on to last month’s letter voted against increasing the minimum wage and 90 percent voted against extending unemployment benefits. All of them voted against equal pay for women. The letter that came out of the Senate was authored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and co-signed by Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), David Vitter (R-LA), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jim Bunning (R-KY), James M. Inhofe (R-OK), James E. Risch (R-ID), Roger F. Wicker (R-MS), John Thune (R-SD), and Johnny Isakson (R-GA). All of these Senators voted against increasing the minimum wage, none voted in favor of equal pay for women, and all of them received a grade of “F” from the AFL-CIO.

Eliseo Medina, a vice president at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), writes:

These leaders have no interest in supporting working families; no interest in raising standards or wages for working people who struggle everyday to provide for their families. In fact, these so-called champions of the American worker have taken every opportunity to make life harder for working families…it’s shameful to watch these members wear such a false veil of reform–fanning the flames of hate and fear against immigrants while championing policies that are bad for workers at every level.

Esther Lopez, Director of Civil Rights and Community Action at the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) warned that UFCW members are now”armed” with this new research and will be ready to go to the backyards of the representatives and say, “you are not on our side.”

The report contends that anti-immigrant policy prescriptions would “only make a bad situation worse” by spending billions more taxpayer dollars on deportation, pushing millions more workers into the underground economy, and maintaining the status quo. Immigration reform with a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants would be an economic boon in the form of an expanded taxbase and a level playing field for all workers and businesses.

A new survey of Israelis by the New America Foundation reveals “a very different picture from the narrative that has taken hold regarding Israeli attitudes toward President Obama and American efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Despite repeated media reports touting a “4 percent Obama approval rating” and arguments that the United States has lost the Israeli public’s support for renewed peace efforts, Israelis actually demonstrate a much more supportive and nuanced view of President Obama, and there is solid backing for an American-sponsored final status agreement along the lines of where the parties left off nine years ago at Taba and in the recent Olmert-Abbas negotiations. The survey also shows that Prime Minister Netanyahu has a great deal of political space to sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians, including within his own Likud party.

Introducing the results at an event this morning, pollster Jim Gerstein, who led the survey, said that Israelis “look upon Obama’s election as a good thing, good for the world,” but also that while Israelis by and large recognize that a balanced U.S. approach to the conflict is necessary, “they still want [the U.S] in their corner.” Obama does, however, have “a net positive favorability” in Israel, better than Israel’s own foreign minister and defense minister, Gerstein said.

Commenting on the survey, New America Foundation foreign policy director Steve Clemmons said that the idea of “some zero sum tug of war for support for Netanyahu versus Obama, for security versus peace negotiations, is a false tension that doesn’t exist in these poll results.”

As to President Obama’s oft-touted (by conservatives) 4% approval rating among Israelis, according to Gil Tamari, Washington Bureau Chief of Israel’s TV10, “this was not a story in Israel. It was born here in Washington, was raised here, and now hopefully will die here.”

While the common view in the US and among our media is that Obama got the prize for not being Bush, in fact the major reason he received it was for his work on nonproliferation, namely his dramatic speech last April in Prague where he laid out his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons. For the leader of a country that has nearly half of all the world’s nuclear weapons to declare that he desires a world without these weapons is actually a very big deal. As President Obama said in his speech today in Oslo:

One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work toward disarmament. I am committed to upholding this treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I am working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.

Most don’t think very much about nukes anymore, but they were the preoccupation of the world for fifty years – a world that saw two powers feverishly build and build the capability to destroy the world and while the Cold War has ended the chance of nuclear attack has increased. Joe Cirincione noted the Nobel “is not about Obama… This is about 23,000 hydrogen bombs in the world ready to use.”

Now the President and his Administration have a long way to go. But they have begun taking steps to advance this vision and will face crucial tests in the coming months.

What has the Administration achieved thus far?

1) It has elevated the priority of arms-control on the international agenda. While the Bush administration basically rejected the concept of arms-control (like with Climate Change), this Administration has done a 180 and placed it square at the top of the international agenda. At the UN Security Council in September the President chaired a session on nonproliferation and reasserted US leadership on this issue. And Washington will host a Global Nuclear Security Summit next April that will focus on safeguarding nuclear materials and preventing nuclear terrorism.

2) The US has rebuilt relations with Russia and has worked with the Russians to cut nuclear weapons. This effort will be ongoing, but the first big step is just about complete, as negotiations over a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which further reduces US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, are wrapping up.

What does the Administration hope to achieve in the coming months?

1) The Administration will release a new Nuclear Posture Review that will test whether the military is really ready to “reduce the role of nuclear weapons” in its strategic posture. This will perhaps be the most critical test, since the President has total control over this process and if the President is unable to tame his own bureaucracy’s reliance on nukes, than convincing the world of our seriousness will be impossible.

2) The White House must push the Senate to ratify the new START treaty, as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Senate ratification requires 67 votes and while analysts feel somewhat confident about START, CTBT will be a real political fight, despite the fact that the US hasn’t physically tested a nuclear weapon in 17 years and with advances in technology there is not, and will not be, any need to. The world will be highly skeptical of American intentions if we refuse to ratify a treaty that would prevent us from doing something that will will almost certainly never do.

3) The US must achieve progress at the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in May. This treaty is the bedrock of the nonproliferation regime and serves to prevent cascading proliferation of the nuclear bomb. Yet the treaty is under increasing strain and if the White House is unable to achieve progress on ratification of START or CTBT or if it fails to produce an NPR that is reflective of the President’s Prague speech the conference will in all likelihood fall well short.