'WHERE are the Ameri cans?" Talk to Iraqis in Baghdad these days, and you'll likely hear the question.

Of course, everyone knows where the Americans are physically. The 130,000 US troops cantoned in a diminishing number of barracks outside the cities make their presence felt on occasion. The thousands of civilian Americans who are helping build a new Iraq are also easy to spot.

The question refers to the United States' fast-fading political profile.

Those who deem Iraq as the biggest US foreign-policy success in decades are baffled by Washington's determined efforts to deny that reality -- indeed, whenever possible, to try to undermine it.

Having labeled Iraq the "bad war" as opposed to the "good war" in Afghanistan, the Obama administration has tried to minimize its commitment to the newly liberated nation. President Obama has appointed special envoys on the Middle East, Iran and the Afghanistan-Pakistan tandem, but refuses to name a senior coordinator for Iraq policy. The Iraqis feel that the administration is treating them as a stepchild -- perhaps tolerated, but never loved.

That perception affects political calculations across the board. With the US air-blowing itself out of the picture, Iran and a bloc of conservative Arab states are positioning themselves for a duel focused on next January's general election.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are promoting a coalition of Sunni Islamist groups, Arab tribal chiefs and remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, with the hope of producing a new Iraqi regime closer to their traditional and ultimately undemocratic systems.

Such a regime's emergence in Baghdad could be a major setback for Iraq's democratic aspirations and a blow to freedom movements across the Mideast, especially neighboring Iran. In contrast, a democratic Iraq could become a model for the region's despotic regimes.

For its part, the Islamic Republic in Iran is desperately trying to score some political points in Iraq. Under siege from the growing freedom movement in Iran itself, the Khomeinist regime hopes to restore part of its lost self-confidence by seeing its clients win power in Baghdad.

In the last set of municipal elections (held in 15 out of the 18 provinces), pro-Iran Shiite parties emerged as big losers along with other Islamist groups. Last month, a pro-Iran Islamist coalition was crushed in local elections in the three Kurdish provinces.

Tehran is trying to promote an all-Shiite coalition by persuading Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa (Call) Party and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for Islam in Iraq to offer a single list of candidates. Tehran strategists hope that a single list that appeals to a majority of Shiites would then be endorsed by Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the faith's highest-ranking religious leader.

Despite intense pressure from Tehran, including thinly veiled threats, Maliki has so far refused to play the Iranian game. An Iraqi nationalist, he is loath to be part of a scheme that could turn Iraq into a client of the Khomeinist state.

Iran is also exerting pressure on Sistani to play the sectarian card by reviving the United Iraqi Alliance list of Shiite parties and groups. But the grand ayatollah's entourage assures us that he favors a nonsectarian political system for Iraq.

The question is: Can Maliki and Sistani, who face opposition from the traditional Arab regimes, resist Iranian pressure without being certain of American support?

Washington's ambivalent attitude has also confused some secular Shiite leaders. A coalition of Maliki's party and the Iraqi Alliance led by ex-Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite, could become the nucleus of a government that would also include the main Kurdish parties of the north.

Such a government could also win support from the As-Sahwa (Awakening) Movement, the principal Arab-Sunni group now courted by despotic Arab regimes. Such a broad coalition would be capable of warding off pressure from both Iran and the Arab despotic bloc.

Such a coalition, though, regarded by many Iraqis as a "dream ticket," won't form without strong, explicit American support.

The theory that the removal of despotic regimes could open the way to democracy in the Arab world has already been demonstrated in Iraq through a series of referenda and elections both local and national. Over the last five years, new political movements, almost all of them pluralist and secular, have emerged among both Arabs and Kurds in Iraq.

"Why are the Americans throwing away our common victory?" asks Iraqi journalist Maad Fayad. "It is absurd for [the Obama administration] to base its policy on Iraq on a weird desire to prove that Bush was wrong."