Say, remember way back in the 2006 midterm election campaign? The Democrats won a good number of Republican-held seats in the House and Senate. One thing their winning candidates had in common was an absolute refusal to endorse a "cut and run" policy on Iraq or a "specific timetable" for withdrawing troops. Most specifically rejected those approaches out of hand - Patrick Murphy, the Iraq War veteran who unseated Mike Fitzgerald in Pennsylvania, refused to say how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq War Resolution even if we knew no WMDs would be recovered.

How is it, then, that Senate Democratic leaders are now talking about a "four to six month timetable" to begin withdrawals? Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mark Mazzetti report for The New York Times:

The Democrats -- the incoming majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada; the incoming Armed Services Committee chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan; and the incoming Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware -- said a phased redeployment of troops would be their top priority when the new Congress convenes in January, even before an investigation of the conduct of the war.

"We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months," Mr. Levin said in an appearance on the ABC News program "This Week."

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"The people have spoken in a very, very strong way that they don't buy the administration policy," Mr. Levin said on ABC. Mr. Reid, in an appearance on CBS, said troop redeployment "should start within the next few months."

Read it all at the link above. Senator Levin overlooks that the winning Democratic candidates who delivered the House and Senate majorities emphatically did NOT run on immediate withdrawal or timetables.

It only goes to show that when conservatives and Republicans angered Democrats by calling them "Defeatocrats" and accusing them of wanting to cut and run from Iraq, we were telling the truth.

There are at least four alternative proposals out there for Iraq policy, the best of which would be an ineffective waste of time, the rest of which would lead to unmitigated disasters.

Talk to Syria and Iran ~ This is the waste of time. Neither regime has ever been known to negotiate in good faith, both are active supporters of terrorism and cheerleaders for those killing our troops in Iraq. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by talking with representatives of either regime, except maybe typhus.

Put in more US troops ~ The very idea of using American soldiers to "hold" territory after we have "swept" it in Baghdad's Sadr City slums, or any of a number of other hot spots, is simply insane. We might as well paint targets on their backs. While some leftists would be pleased that their prewar predictions of "tens of thousands of American soldiers coming home in body bags" might finally come true, the rest of America would be displeased with the inevitable results.

Partition Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shi'ite sectors ~ Joe Biden's plan, which explains why he has resorted to plagiarism in the past. This is an insane idea. Not only would it guarantee an immediate civil war in Iraq (and no, what is happening there now is NOT a civil war), but it would also immediately involve Syria, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps Jordan. Kurdish independence scares the heck out of Turkey and Iran, who have substantial populations of oppressed Kurds of their own, in territories bordering the Kurdish provinces of Iraq, who cry out for a new Kurdistan. Plus, the Sunnis would have almost no oil resources; what are they supposed to live on, sand exports? A looney toons idea from a blithering idiot.

Withdrawal before the situation is stable enough ~ Here again, even a successful withdrawal would guarantee a full-scale civil war and long-term chaos. Any such result would undoubtably cause a complete disruption of the oil industry, and force world prices back to crisis levels.

Whatever one believes about the wisdom or necessity of going into Iraq in the first place, we are left to deal with the situation as it stands, NOT what might have been or might be wished. Sometimes there is no easy solution, which is why we have the word, "dilemma," in our language. Perhaps the Iraq Study Group will have come up with some viable new approach heretofore unenvisioned by policymakers, but it cannot be one of the above fool's errands.