the dems got back in power in congress because of Iraq, in spite of doing their best to run away from the issue. Pelosi went out of her way to assure people that she didn't want to impeach Bush, and Harry Reid has since given a tepid endorsement of troop surge.

Mr Shapiro wonders: "If a "surge" in troop levels had a 20 percent chance of reducing the lethal nature of the civil war, would it be a risk worth taking? If America began a major troop withdrawal tomorrow, would more Iraqi civilians be alive in 2008? What should be the guiding philosophy that determines America's next step in Iraq? Reducing U.S. military casualties? Saving Iraqi lives? Preventing further chaos in the region?"

No sane person believes that troop "surge" has a remote chance of doing anything positive. It will result in more Iraqi deaths, more US military deaths, and greater instability in the region. At this point the Bush administration and its enablers in the congress and the press are only fighting for US relevance in the region, something George Bush, jr has sorely squandered and which may also be beyond recovery.

It's pretty clear to me that the dems are oblivious if they think they don't have to do anything about Iraq and just have to be the "not-George Bush" party. That is Shapiro's "opportunity that has yet to be exploited."

If they fail to force America's troops out of Iraq by 2008, or at least demonstrate that they tried their damnedest to do so and the GOP prevented it, then they will lose the congress and the White House in November'08.

the most apt name for the decade is the Owees, because

1.it sounds like something small children would call the decade, reminding us of how so much of our popular and political discourse of late has been based on treating the citizenry like infants, and

2.because we owe so much more money now than we did at the beginning of said decade.

Undignified? Sure. But this undignified era doesn't deserve a dignifed moniker.

one of the options the Salonists mention, with sensible dread, is favoring the Shi'a. The thing is, BushCo has already chosen this, albeit without calling it as much.

(This one of the reasons recent attempts by the state department to negotiate with the insurgency have been unsuccessful. Based on what they've seen thus far, why should they trust the administration?)

Virtually every side in this conflict has its share of bad actors, which is precisely why all major factions, including the Sunni and the Shi'a, need to be included rather than excluded. You can't just choose the virtuous, and magically wave your wand and dismiss the rest.

The so-called sectarian violence is primarily a war over turf and resources. If the current de facto policy of favoring the Shi'a is continued, the more belligerent Shi'a will exterminate the Sunni, silence the moderates among their numbers, and the neocons will again protest about how shocked they are by another "unexpected" turn of events.

"But its framers failed to explain how, after three years of shocking mismanagement, the Bush administration would somehow now be stricken with a case of icy competence."

I'm reminded of the perennial cartoon in which a physics prof writes a bunch of incomprehensible calculations, and writes,

"then something incredible happens"

just before we get to the solution.

You give them too much credit when you say their plans look good on paper. Their plans look like an attempt to do to to Baghdad in 2007-2008 what they did to Fallujah in late 2004. Donna writes:

So more American troops pour into Bagdad, to "clear and secure" the mixed and Sunni neighborhoods. Are they to kill all Sunnis? Are they to incarcerate all "terrorists"? Do they stand by if the Iraqis decide to do an ethnic cleansing? As in Viet Nam (sorry Bush),what does the enemy look like? Will the citizens of Bagdad be able to move around freely, or will our troops be policing new Warsaw ghettos? How do you lock down a whole city?

The purpose of our continued presence in Iraq at this point is to save face, nothing more. And I fail to see why the soldiers and the civilians who will die in the coming months and years owe this to the president or his assorted cronies.