Now is the time to strike! The planets are aligning to give the Democratic Party a golden opportunity to define themselves, win back the Congress, and come up with a coherent, strategically sound, and politically beneficial position on Iraq.

The Democrats have just been handed a gift by 82 members of the Iraqi parliament.

“Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum called for the withdrawal of foreign forces from their country in a letter released to the media June 19.

The move comes as U.S. President George W. Bush is under increasing domestic pressure to set a timetable for the pullout of American forces in the face of an increasing death toll at the hands of insurgents.

Eighty-two Shiite, Kurdish, Sunni Arab, Christian and communist deputies made the call in a letter sent by Falah Hassan Shanshal of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the largest group in parliament, to speaker Hajem al-Hassani.

Some of those who signed urged that a detailed timetable be established for the withdrawal. “

SEIZE THIS MOMENT DEMOCRATS!

Elected Iraqi lawmakers have now given you POLITICAL COVER to join Senator Feingold and Representatives Kucinich and Jones to push for a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq. It’s not “cutting and running” if you have a large, powerful block of elected Iraqi lawmakers asking us to leave.

Let’s see. We have a large block of Iraqi lawmakers calling for a withdrawl timetable. And we have the American people saying they want us to get out of Iraq.

So there’s no reason not to push a detailed plan for withdrawl. Period.

It also avoids embarrassingly stupid comments like we will “have to face” the dilemma of reinstituting the draft!

As for strategic arguments, Jim Henley sums up an argument I have been making for some time: Setting a withdrawl timetable will HELP Iraq stabilize, not undermine their effort to do so.

I admit that during the campaign last year, I was a “now that we bungled our way in, we have to do the job right” guy.

No more.

I have become convinced that Bush will never execute the correct strategy in Iraq, which inolved essentially doubling our troop committment, and sealing off Iraq’s borders more effectively to stem the flow of insurgents and weapons.

So, he’s going to muddle along, hoping to keep the pot from boiling over just long enough to prevent the GOP from geting wiped out in next year’s midterm elections.

After that, he could care less. He knows that he will saddle his successor with a huge mess to clean up. Whether it’s a member of his own party, or a Democrat. That’s the story of Bush’s life: Create a huge mess, and then let someone else clean it up.

Therefore, it is BEST if the Democrats get ahead of the curve now, and enunciate a clear strategy for how we will get out of Iraq. That way, whether they take power or not, they will not be burdened with the necessity of keeping that stupid war going for domestic politcal reasons.

And if they do take power, they can justifiably argue that they have a mandate for getting us out — damn the consequences.

As for those consequences, I believe that setting, say, a 24 month timetable for all combat troops, for example, will force the Iraqis to start making the tough political compromises necessary to draft a new constitution.

Right now, the Iraqis are so messed up that they can’t even decide on who’s going to be on the committee that DRAFTS the Constitution, let alone what its provisions will entail. Knowing that the US will not be around in two years to bail them out will serve as a powerful motvating force to get moving.

I also believe that the Iraqis are essentially becoming a huge welfare state, paid for by YOUR tax dollars. If they know we are leaving, and they will no longer be able to rely upon huge U.S. taxpayer grants, Iraqis will be more motivated to root out corruption, strengthen their economy and stabilize their oil sector.

I guarantee you that once our troops are gone, Congress will no longer be spending the tens of billion of dollars we now dump on Iraq. The aid will still come, but it will be more of a trickle than a flood.

I also believe that, right now, the insurgency is being fueled to a great extent by our continuing presence in Iraq. So long as we are there, it’s easier to recruit disaffected Iraqis to the cause. So long as we are there, it also serves as a powerful magnet for every Islamic militant with a death wish and a grudge against the United States.

Once we leave, the split in the insurgency between the nationalist faction and the islamic Sunni militant faction will accelerate. The latter being, in my view, much smaller.

Once we are gone, the nationalist faction will put up it’s own “mission accomplished” banner, and side with the Iraqi government to clean out the Islamic militants. After all, they are mostly “foreign invaders” too.

In fact, we can actually make our withdrawl part of a deal with the nationalists to stop fighting, and join the Iraqi political process.

So, there are very good reasons to pursue this strategy strictly from the standpoint of accompishing our main goal in Iraq: The establishment of a stable, democratic government.

If the Democrats can’t coalesce around this strategy, they don’t deserve to win another election for a generation. They are hopeless.

But, there is something in this for even the Joe Lieberman wing of the party. And, I believe it will also attract a lot of disaffected Republicans.

The political risk the Dmocrats face is that someone like Chuck Hagel or John McCain will figure out the massive political benefit of taking this position before they do.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

But this is a terrific opportunity for the Democrats to advocate a position that is not only in the best interests of the United States and the Iraqies, but one that is politically beneficial to the party as well.

So, Washington Democrats, do the right thing.

UPDATE: Kos predicts that…

“[T]he first [Democratic Presidential] candidate (or potential candidate) to come out for a full withdrawl from Iraq will get a huge groundswell of support.”

I absolutely agree with him on that.

Which is why I think Russ Feingold may be the next Howard Dean, and why Wesley Clark (despite being the frontrunner in Kos’ straw poll) may have some trouble.