If the upcoming elections result in a Democratic majority in Congress, (which now seems likely, although still by no means certain), the US involvement in Iraq will be over in a matter of months, not years. I suspect that the Bush administration can read the writing on the wall as well as the rest of us can, and the political imperative is to cut their losses and do some serious damage control before 2008 rolls around. A Democratic victory, however slight, will allow the Bush White House to withdraw and save face, which is not possible as long as the GOP has a majority.

Even a half-hearted effort by a Democratic majority to initiate a modest exit strategy will give the current administration the perfect excuse it needs to withdraw and give itself political cover by claiming that it is impossible to carry out the war without the full support of the opposition. If the results of withdrawal are catastrophic, the blame can be shifted onto the left and the press. If things don't turn out as bad as we expect, some success for the war can be claimed and some credit for the administration salvaged.

Video of desperate US allies hanging onto the skids of departing choppers and aircraft being deep-sixed off the flattops to make room for more refugee flights did not derail the Nixon administration and its supporters, it took Watergate to do that, and I suspect that Al-Jazeera will not be showing us film of the Baghdad bloodbath that will most likely follow our departure.

Please spare me the predictable outrage from the Right, this is not a partisan rant, I suspect that if the Democrats found themselves in the same jam they'd do the same thing. If it hurts too much to think of Vietnam, just think of it as Somaliland on a vast, vast scale.