This week was a sad affair, an alas expected pathetic drama of how to score an own goal and for good measure get a penalty for it, as we say in soccer.

Instead of applying damage control and closing ranks by backing MoveOn.org, if not for their choice of words than at least for their correct evaluation, Democrats engaged in trench warfare between liberal grassroots and the moderate establishment; some even went so far as to advocate conciliation and bipartisan harmony on Iraq as the Egg of Columbus. With the campaign season in full throttle such a proposal is outright ludicrous, worse, Democrats could not possibly commit a greater folly!

On the contrary, Democratic candidates need to get more substantial, aggressive, sweeping in their demands and visions. If they can't finally manage to make up their mind themselves on what leadership means, they need to be forced to. Progressive grassroots finally need to get alive in this campaign, helm the offensive, stop allowing the DLC to dictate what is a winning strategy, and take a lesson from Ronald Reagan: they need to shape their own foreign policy!

Let's get things straight first:

1. - The whole Democratic Caucus can turn nudist and streak Capitol Hill, they'll never get the 60 votes necessary for withdrawal in 2008. So stop selling us pipe dreams as your Iraq policy!


2. - With the Petraeus report and the cutback of 30,000 in July next year doubting Thomases among Republicans are brought back in line.


3. - Until January 20, 2009, official American foreign policy is concocted in the White House. President Bush not only believes he can still win this war, he won't even consider complete withdrawal as establishing permanent military bases in Iraq was a prime reason for the invasion from the get go.


4. - Already seen as the worst president since James Buchanan, George Bush has nothing to lose; he'd rather escalate the war to Iran than to accept this inconvenient truth for himself.

These are the facts, as tragic as they are, and there is nothing you can change about it.

There is something liberal grassroots organization can do, though. Instead of accepting their lame-duck status for a year, have President Bush administrate disaster and unleash another havoc with nothing but empty rhetoric to hold against, they should recall the 1980 October Surprise Conspiracy.

As confirmed by NSC member Gary Sick, former Reagan-Bush Campaign Staffer Barbara Honegger, and former Republican chief-strategist Kevin Phillips, the Reagan Campaign in a treasonable hat-trick of unprecedented proportions secretly negotiated with the Islamic Republic of Iran to delay the release of the embassy hostages until Jimmy Carter was defeated at the polls; in an election year the opposition sidelined and marginalized the president and conducted their own foreign policy. I'm not suggesting anything of that kind. What I'm proposing is for progressive grassroots organizations to envision and enforce their own foreign policy agenda for the sake of preventing another war in the Middle East that surely will turn out ten times worse than Iraq. Instead of shady meetings in Paris hotel rooms, as George H. W. Bush and William Casey are charged with, this policy would be conducted under complete transparency and with public knowledge and approval. There's nothing treasonable about preparing the ground for a Democratic president to take over in January 2009, yet it will significantly curtail George Bush's freedom to breed mischief.

The first step would be for all influential progressive grassroots organizations, such as MoveOn.org and DailyKos, to draft a common declaration in which they stipulate to condition their fund raising as well as their internet and door-to-door campaigning to those candidates who will sign up to these three simple principles:

1. - Whoever will win the Democratic nomination will advance and support Congressional initiatives to impede President Bush from attacking Iran, if not based on bullet proof evidence of the Islamic Republic actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program or being directly involved in attacks on U.S. military in Iraq.


2. - Whoever will win the Democratic nomination pledges to, if elected, implement the recommendations in regard to military and diplomatic concerns of the Iraq Study Group from day one in office, with the amendment to complete the removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2009, if practical consensus on the stability of Iraq has been reached with Iraq's neighbors until that deadline.


3. - Whoever will win the Democratic nomination pledges to, if elected, divert significant funding from Iraq to the UN authorized, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, of which at least fifty percent have to account for humanitarian aid, and to place the currently separate 8,000 U.S. troops under NATO command, if America's partners were willing to contribute additional troops of the same size.

No current Democratic hopeful could reasonably refuse to cooperate on those principles or denounce them as undue burdens curtailing their electability as they have repeatedly declared for them themselves before. Additionally, besides frustrating any ideas President Bush may entertain of creating a Gulf of Tonkin incident such a common declaration by all the Democratic frontrunners would have the following perks:

1. - Instead of being reduced to useful idiots who collect votes and funding and are sidelined as soon as the election is won, progressive grassroots would ensure to have a say over "their" candidate past November 4. Without alleging any current Democratic frontrunner the notion of once in office being tempted to realize a limited version of George Bush's Iraq-ambitions, such a voter-bamboozlement would be effectively blocked by a solemn covenant from the get go.


2. - Democratic foreign policy would rest upon one common base all could agree on, frustrating Republican attempts to drive a wedge between progressives and moderates.


3. - Republicans could no longer portray Democrats as weak on national security as they, in contrast to the current administration, would fight the "war on terror" where it ought to be fought.


4. - Democrats would not have to fear to bear the brunt for George Bush's blunders in Iraq well into their tenure. America's commitment in Iraq would end on December 31, 2009, and Democrats would have always clearly said so. No wavering accepted, no blame game possible.


5. - Instead of the completely unrealistic timelines voiced at the moment this would give the Iraqi Prime Minister, whoever that may be, two years to prepare for that day and get their house in order. Iraqi officials can't afford to wait until November, instead they will try to establish lines of communication with the Democratic candidate to discuss specifics. The candidate would not have to make any commitments until November, these contacts, even if only entertained on track three level, however, would make it harder for President Bush to do whatever pleases him in Iraq.


6. - It would send a strong message to Tehran to at least not advance their enrichment process until they know who they'll have to deal with from January 2009 on.


7. - Iran and Syria could hope for being treated in the talks on the future of Iraq as equal partners and, in hope for those to result in a grand bargain and realignment of U.S. policy towards them, like hell would destabilize Iraq. On the contrary, they would do all in their power to calm the situation for the talks not to fail before they started. Ideally, the Council of Guardians in Tehran would even start to ponder on whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were the ideal candidate to back in Iran's presidential elections in spring 2009.

I'm not at all contending that these scenarios are a given to eventuate, but they are at least a remotely practical possibility by all means worth considering. Before progressive grassroots even start toying with these ideas, though, they need to stop just being content with demanding an impeachment or complete withdrawal from Iraq, something this Congress will never pull through, and instead get real and realize the sway they have over their party at election times.

I will keep posting on progressive grassroots' opportunities to shape their own foreign policy agenda more in detail over the next days.

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Hannes Artens is the author of The Writing on the Wall, the first anti-Iran-war novel.