President Obama’s announcement that the U.S. will meet the August 31 deadline for removing combat troops from Iraq is welcome news. It is encouraging that the president remains on track to end the war in Iraq as he promised to do.

The president should continue this progress and adhere to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and remove the 50,000 troops that will remain in Iraq by the end of 2011. Although political and security uncertainties remain, these concerns should not delay the withdrawal. There will always be excuses, especially from those who favored the war at the outset, for an open-ended presence.

Such a policy reversal would be neither warranted nor wise. An expeditious military withdrawal from Iraq, and a handover of security responsibilities to the Iraqi people is in America’s strategic interest. The war in Iraq has already consumed far too much blood and treasure, and our troops are straining under the burdens of repeated foreign deployments.

It appears that President Obama will keep his promise to end the war in Iraq, and bring all the troops home from that shattered land. His decision to dramatically expand the war in Afghanistan, however, signals an unwillingness to truly change the course of U.S. foreign policy in a direction that advances U.S. security, and at far less cost than our current strategy. The war in Iraq was, and still is, a great tragedy. It would be more tragic still if the President and his senior advisers fail to heed the lesson that attempts at nation-building are costly and counterproductive.