One reason many Democrats hesitate to put the pedal to the metal on Iraq is the belief that it will be lost of its own accord. If there is a catastrophic meltdown, then withdrawal will simply sweep along, and they can march to the front of the parade. The fear is that there will be a "stabbed in the back" myth if we leave one moment before the insurgency tosses the last bloody body out a Baghdad door.

It's poor strategy, because no matter what the outcome, the militarists will blame the Democrats for the loss, and since there will have, repeat have, to be a shearing of the vast war time budget with all of its gravy, the Democrats will be blamed for that too. In short, no matter what happens, the hard right will spin a myth of the Democratic Party as hating the military.

Instead, waiting too long will destroy the Democratic Party's chances of really taking power with public mandate, because they will be seen as slightly less hard right sellouts who don't care about the American people. Iraq is ripping through a generation of young men, their lives, their families and their loved ones. Every day it goes on, shreds the best and the brightest of their cohort. "What happened to all of those brilliant young lieutenants from the last war who were supposed to be generals now?" "They all died waving a revolver around Flanders in the gas attacks."

Non-binding resolutions, top down strategies, the clear and blatant disregard for the work that people not in the Beltway tank do - these are all hallmarks of a Democratic leadership that thinks that the way to stop Bush is to stack the box with defenders and stop him from plodding along. Bush doesn't plod. He takes shots downfield, and then plays defense to run out the clock. Right now, he is running out the clock, and taking shots down field by agitating against Iran and Islamic terrorists - who do not have atomic weapons, while talking to and bribing North Korea - which does have atomic weapons, however unreliable they may be.

The first key to Bush is to take away his long bomb ability. Look at the approval graph. Bush almost never marches up, but instead shoots up. Take this away from him and he has much more difficulty end running a Democratic Congress, because his sole sustained upward move was based on being a free spender with a friendly Congress. Absent bombing and bribing, there is no upside to Bush or his policies.

This is why the realization must sink in to the Democratic Party that they have to either start impeachment, or they have to erase Bush's legacy with scorched earth tactics. First slash out NCLB and replace it, then rewrite Medicare Part D in its entirety, then annihilate the large pork projects like the throw a rock at Mars project, then the large defense procurements. Replace the spending that actually reaches the ground with something else, so that ordinary people don't suffer for Bush's decision not to come to the table, but make sure that there is no corporate profit in it.

Failure to do this will de energize the base in 2008 -- a base that the Democratic Party will need to counter -- a right wing that will not be at the pit of depression, and which will be facing the possibility of a Democratic President filling slots on the court and in general not following the theocratic social line, and a wealthy elite faced with having to pay back all that money the government borrowed.

The news from Baghdad is fairly clear. As with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and as predicted on this blog, the first stage was the loss of roads, the next stage was forcing the US to pull back to hard points and rely on choppers. The last phase is to shatter the control of these hard points by attack choppers, which now must act in close defense. This puts the occupation as rounding its last turn. Still a long way to go if we allow it to slowly collapse, but with a shattering end that will resemble the Iranian embassy crisis - an over run of some American civilian position, with the resulting hostage crisis.

That is where this is going, unless it is stopped. The crisis of confidence that will come from waiting for humiliation, as opposed to defeat, in Iraq will be of Vietnam proportions.