The awful thing about the fix we are in is that pulling out abruptly might indeed cause even a bigger mess than there is now, and lead to consequences that would be bad for the future of the region, and for our interests, though those should be secondary to the general good health of the region.

My fellow liberals rationalize their desire to pull out right away with several semi-valid points. The problem is, after we justifiably leave, the mess remains, and we created it.

Part of determining the limits of our moral obligation in Iraq is to ask the Iraqis what they want us to do. Polls since the invasion have uniformly said that they want us to (1) secure the country and (2) leave. It is not entirely clear that they want (2) to follow (1), or are instead in conflict about the two. The best clue is that a something like a majority now think it's OK to kill Americans. But we should ask them. If they say, "Go home now!", we should leave.

Meanwhile, we should launch a total, comprehensive diplomatic effort to make the deals necessary to bring stability and democracy, as the Iraq Study Group called for. There are signs that this may involve cutting up the country, and that that has begun to happen de facto already.

That won't happen, however, because Bush/Cheney loathe and despise diplomats and all their works and tolerate Condi because she's cute and plays the piano. They also will cling to the neocon battle plan of permanent occupation with a large garrison, yea verily unto the last generation.

So the best that can happen is that Congress can try to shape things a bit for the next president. Republicans can be shamed into supporting more diplomacy -- Senator Lugar has done that already in a general way and might be called upon for some bipartisan suggestions. And they can be shamed into passing something like the bill they just blocked which would protect the troops with the limits on combat exposure that have been U.S. policy since World War II. Beyond that, Democrats should demand an update of the Iraq Study Group Report and commit to it totally, and shame the Republicans into doing so, too.

If they had done that when it first came out, they would without doubt occupy the moral high ground now, and with it the political high ground. And a lot of our troops would be on their way home now.

First, the oft-quoted polls about low standing of Congress appear to be due to the failure of the pollsters to ask, or the reporters to quote the answers, whether the respondents are mad at Democrats or the now-filibustering Republicans, or both.

Second, while it is tempting, and would be effective, to defund the Iraq war, that can't be done without a united front based on a careful analysis. "United front" is Chinese to Democrats. Still, most of them are close to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report, which needs to be updated and supported. I hope that includes paying attention to polling what the Iraqi people want on a variety of options. We have known from the first that they want us out, but they also want us to provide security. Does that mean they want us to do the latter before the former, or just do our best on the way out? The pollsters need to refine that, and then we need to decide how long our moral duty requires that we do what they want anyway. Our "national interests" must be secondary in all this, because we had no right to go in in the first place. But we are the ones who took the lid off that Pandora's box, so we have to hold the bag up to some reasonable point. But beware the goal of the neocons: a permanent garrison and control of the region through military intimidation.

Third, Democrats need to be extremely careful lest a new war with Iran get started when they aren't looking. Seymour Hersch, who reported last year that Cheney had to be tied down to keep him from dropping nukes on Iran, now says a less radical bombing strike is in the works. At that point, impeachment discussion gets serious.

Similarly, Mr. Kamiya is exactly right in sounding alarm about a resolution to treat Iranian military as terrorists, because it reclassifies them in a way that serves our warmongers, and Israel's. I want to know more about this. I also am among the growing number of people who see that AIPAC is speaking for the interests of Israel in exactly the same way as the Republican Party speaks for the interest of the United States. And both of them are crawling with neocons, meaning warmongers and nut cases. Criticizing AIPAC gets you called anti-Semitic in some quarters, and it's time to call that smear despicable.

Fourth, Democrats need to pound on a peaceful and civil approach to foreign policy. Americans want us to be a good neighbor in the world. Let that be the motto of our next foreign policy.