Fate of troops hang in the balance while we wait for November

Today, as US troops prepare for a "final assualt" on Najaf to unseat Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraqis are protesting in mobs and the Iraqi Vice President is calling for the troops to stand down. This, of course, is contrary to the statements of Iraq's President who ordered Al Sadr out of Najaf.

It is a familiar dilemma. The US will suffer if it attacks in Najaf, just as it would if it attacked in Falluja. Iran is supporting Al Sadr and undermining the fragile Allawi administration. The US will open an unfathomable vein of bitter rage in the common Iraqi if it totals Najaf to get rid of Al Sadr.

US troops are in grave danger. We can fight and fight we will, but military victory in an expanding lattice-work of civil uprising looks very, very distant from here. There is no possible way for 130,000 troops to stave off the kind of civil war facing Iraq. When, not if, the situation explodes, our troops will be caught in the middle of a meat grinder.

John Kerry isn't an instant solution to the mess that George Bush made. But it is in US, and the world's, interest to advance a Kerry victory.

The reasons why this is so don't have much to do with the pros and cons of either man per se. It's business. I am pretty sure Bush would welcome the intervention and assistance of any number of our allies at this point. But he can't ask. It would be way too expensive. That's because Bush made such a point of going it alone. Now, well, we are alone. For Bush to get serious with the allies he would have to renounce his entire strategy and open up the US treasury. That would completely alienate his base and give Kerry a nice flip-floppy talking point. In short, it would completely degrade his chances for re-election. So Iraq, our troops, Iran and the rest of the world teeter on the brink of total meltdown.

Kerry has the negotiating advantage of saying to the world-- Hey, I didn't get us into this mess, but you better believe we are in it together. The allies have the advantage of saying-- Hey we aren't mad at you we are mad at that other guy. Everybody has the advantage of saying, the past is the past, let's move forward towards a solution together.

A lot can happen between now and November. I pray the situation slows down. If Iraq doesn't spiral completely out of control in the interim and Kerry wins, there is a chance, not a great chance, but a chance, of the world joining together to produce a stable Iraq.