Today, Iraq turned a corner. There is a long road ahead before America's criminal entanglement can be sorted out, but the fact that the Iraq Study Group--the blue-ribbon task force co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker--has proposed to end the role of US combat forces in Iraq will irreversibly begin the process of ending the war itself.

Created last spring as a mechanism to force President Bush to reverse course on Iraq, the ISG has succeeded in its central mission, namely, the establishment of a benchmark for a bipartisan accord--in Congress, and among the foreign policy elite--for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq. By hammering out a consensus among its ten members, the ISG's report will create unstoppable momentum for "redeployment" of those forces. Its formal report will be released next Wednesday.

Newly empowered Democrats on Capitol Hill, bolstered by an overwhelming electoral mandate on Iraq from the November 7 antiwar vote that swept them into power, will be emboldened by the ISG to exert maximum pressure on the White House for the "phased withdrawal" plan put forward by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Expect that to begin Tuesday, at hearings to confirm Robert Gates, a former member of the Iraq Study Group and a realist with close ties to Baker, as Secretary of Defense.

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