When things looked bad in Iraq, the Democrats wanted an all-or-nothing plan for immediate defeat at any cost. They wouldn't accept any bipartisan solutions that might give our forces a chance to win, and Iraq a chance to be stable. Well, now that the situation in Iraq is improving daily, the Democrats are willing to look for GOP allies to help get the American military defeat they so desperately need to be successful in 2008.

With a mixed picture emerging about progress in Iraq, Senate Democratic leaders are showing a new openness to compromise as they try to attract Republican support for forcing at least modest troop withdrawals in the coming months.

After short-circuiting consideration of votes on some bipartisan proposals on Iraq before the August break, senior Democrats now say they are willing to rethink their push to establish a withdrawal deadline of next spring if doing so will attract the 60 Senate votes needed to prevail.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said, “If we have to make the spring part a goal, rather than something that is binding, and if that is able to produce some additional votes to get us over the filibuster, my own inclination would be to consider that.”

Democrats would need to lure the 60 senators in order to cut off a likely Republican filibuster.

The emerging proposal by Mr. Levin and Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, would still order the administration to begin pulling at least some combat troops out of Iraq, probably by the end of the year. It is not clear what other provisions the measure may include.

But Mr. Levin, who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee and who met Wednesday with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said a compromise may be worth making. It would allow Congress to assert its own voice on Iraq policy, after falling short of that goal in most such votes throughout the year, he said.

Frankly, Congressional micromanaging of the war like this is a bad thing. It was tried back during the Civil War, and resulted in chaos as good generals had to justify bad outcomes before a congressional committee, while political hacks often got a pass from their patrons despite their incompetence. By its very nature, Congress is ill-equipped to direct the war and to set such timetables -- and since the Democrats have made it clear that they are more interested in the political benefit of retreat and surrender, this particular Congress must be considered incompetent and irrelevant to military decision-making.