But the point of the military security strategy is to allow for significant progress in political benchmarks. That is where this strategy is not working. The fact that the Iraq Legislature took off the month of August was unacceptable. I cannot imagine there will be significant progress made in the next 30 days on the various political benchmark issues.

General Patraeus was overwhelmingly approved by both political parties, so Democrats will need to be careful not to raise any issues concerning his integrity. But will they have the toughness to hold Bush and Iraq to the commitments they made? So far Democrats have acted as anything but a majority party.