I understand from the New York Times that some Democrats are putting pressure on the Bush administration for a change of course in Iraq in that they calling for a phased withdrawal of US troops to begin in four to six months. If Iraq is in a civil war situation, and is rapidly disintegrating into warring ethnic regions, then ensuring stability is a key concern.

Martin Rowson

That means some sort of timetabled military withdrawal linked to political and security stability in Iraq with a minimum of casualties and a maximum of salvageable dignity.This would need to be sold as cleaning up the Republican mess and a purging of political elites in Washington over who lost Iraq

How can this new direction be done by the new Democrat-led Congress? I would have thought that they would have some popular support after the Congressional elections as there is little desire in America's body politic to continuing to fight the insurgency in order to bring stability to the country. Who does the US support in this situation? The Sunnis, Shiites or Kurds?

So what happens next? Will there be congressional oversight and investigations into defense procurement scandals and corruption in contracts in Iraq. Will the Democrats commitment to multilateralism lead to a regional settlement of the outstanding issues between Iran and the United States?