What if we win in Iraq? If the thought makes you break out in a cold sweat, you could be a Democratic candidate for president.

		Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).

Democratic leaders in Congress have cut and run from the "slow bleed" strategy (to hamstring the war effort in Iraq through restrictive amendments in the defense appropriations bill) outlined by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Johnstown, that I described last week.

But sabotaging the war effort is still foremost on the Democratic agenda. Sen. "Slow Joe" Biden of Delaware wants to repeal the 2002 authorization to go to war in Iraq (for which Sen. Biden had voted).

Democrats have invested so much political capital in an American defeat that their electoral prospects in 2008 could be devastated if we win.

And win we very well may. The troop surge the Democrats are trying to stop already has produced a sharp decline in the number of bullet-riddled bodies found in the streets of Baghdad, the AP reported Tuesday.

"Since the crackdown was formally launched Feb. 14, a total of 164 bodies have been found in the capital as of Monday, according to AP figures. The AP count showed that 390 bodies were discovered in the same period in January," the AP said.

"I spoke to my father in Baghdad, and he said the street is very impressed by the operation and receiving much cooperation from the people," said Haider Ajina, a Shiite Iraqi-American Web logger.

"The best part remains the return of displaced families to their homes," wrote the Iraqi Web logger Mohammed Fadhil, a Sunni. "More than 600 families have returned so far."

I'm flabbergasted that it took the president until last December to realize that protecting the Iraqi population is the key to success.

Recognition of the obvious has come awfully late. But not too late, thinks Donald Stoker, who teaches strategy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

Most insurgencies fail, and the insurgents in Iraq lack the ingredients of the few successful insurgencies of the 20th century, Prof. Stoker said.

Nearly 3,400 service members have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. But our combat deaths have been fewer than the number of troops who die from accidents when the nation is conducting ground wars. (During the Clinton administration, an average of 939 personnel died each year, mostly in accidents. Since 2003, an average of 800 troops have died each year in Iraq.)

The Bush administration's mistakes doubtless have prolonged the war. But our perception of failure may be more the product of ignorance and impatience than of the realities on the ground. Typically, it takes eight to 11 years to defeat an insurgency, Prof. Stoker said. We've been in Iraq for less than four.

The passage of time is required for the adjustments in attitude which seem to be taking place among Iraqis. Sunnis had to be disabused of the notion they could continue to lord it over the majority Shiites and the Kurds. And Sunnis had to experience the ugliness of al-Qaida rule in Fallujah and Tal Afar before public opinion among them turned decisively against the terror group.

There have been major political gains in recent months. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki no longer is using linguini for a spine. The Iraqi parliament has agreed on an oil revenue sharing plan. The discovery of major oil deposits in Anbar should spur Sunni desires for peace.

Democrats clamored for a U.S. defeat during the Civil War. The Copperheads were ascendant until Gen. Sherman captured Atlanta two months before the 1864 elections. But Republicans creamed them when voters thought victory was nigh. President Bush may have his Atlanta before the primaries begin.

If the war is going badly in the fall of 2008, Republicans are toast. But if it's going well, the Democrats will be feeling the heat. So while it might make political sense now for Democrats to want to pull out of Iraq before the job is done, it is a political posture that could come to bite them in the tuchus.