Vice President Biden returned to Iraq to visit some friends today, and as a "welcome back" present, the Green Zone where he's staying was hit with four mortars. The Green Zone -- officially, the International Zone -- is the heavily fortified zone where coalition (read: U.S. and British) troops and other officials are stationed. It includes the U.S. embassy, where, at the time of the attack, Biden was headed to bed. 

Was the Vice President in danger? Sure -- I'd hazard a guess that there's no safe place in Iraq for an American Vice President to travel. Was he a target?  That seems a little less likely, but it's not implausible. The New York Times says that "word of his arrival... had been widely broadcast by international and Iraqi news media." So maybe someone decided this was an opportune moment to launch a long-held attack. Should we be concerned? My answer is yes.

I like Joe Biden, and I'm glad he escaped unscathed. Beyond the personal concern, though, this near-miss raises two important questions. First, is it worth the risk to send our vice president to Iraq? Second, will we ever be able to send an American leader to Iraq without significant security risks?

The second question may be impossible to answer, particularly since I can't really tell you if we even consider that a goal anymore.

The first question is complex, as well, and deserves an attempt at answering. Biden's said he went to Iraq to help smooth things out between warring political factions. He's been in close contact with their leaders and apparently he -- or someone in the administration -- feels that a round of face-to-face meetings between top Iraqi leaders and the administration's point man on All Things Iraq is the best way to arrange a political cease fire. Since the January elections are the newest benchmark for progress in Iraq, the Obama administration (and the U.S. in general) has a lot at stake in seeing peaceable politics prosper.

But at what cost? What if those mortars had hit the U.S. embassy, and Joe Biden (god forbid) had been killed in his sleep? Just play that out for a second. Then ask yourself, would America -- could America -- quit a war after the enemy had killed our vice president?

There's a lot to be said for the boost in morale that can accompany the "fearless" visit to the front of a superior official. Presidents past (and candidates, too) have trekked to Iraq for just this reason -- to see but also to be seen among the men and women on the ground. By "being seen," I'm not even talking about the kind of photo-op crap that politicians always engage in; I mean that for soldiers slogging through the heat and the suck of Iraq, for low-level diplomats, probably even for some Iraqi police officers and leaders, the presence of a major American leader in country offers a sense of hope, maybe a flicker of the feeling that Washington isn't so far away. That's priceless, and it probably is worth some increase in risk.

But I hope these trips are being weighed carefully against the heavy burden that a loss coud bring. I don't know what the precise math is, but I do wonder if perhaps the scale isn't tipping further toward risk than reward right now.