From the WAPO,

"Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline.

In that month, political pressures in Washington will dovetail with the military timeline in Baghdad. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, has said that by then he will have a handle on whether the current troop increase is having any impact on political reconciliation between Iraq's warring factions. And fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1, will almost certainly begin with Congress placing tough new strings on war funding."

...The fixation with September is all the more striking because funding bills that cleared the House and Senate this spring were looking well into 2008 to mandate significant changes. The Senate-passed bill set March 2008 as a goal for withdrawing U.S. combat troops, while the House envisioned combat troops being withdrawn by the end of August 2008. In the ensuing weeks, however, news from Iraq has shown little improvement, while public opinion has continued to harden against the war.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who has taken a hard line in Bush's favor, said Sunday, "By the time we get to September, October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B."

My assumption had been that Bush has until early 2008 to produce results in Iraq and win the war, but I am no longer sure that's the case.

What I've been hearing of late tracks with this article. In September/October, the Democrats are going to make another big push to lose the war and unless we've seen huge progress, a significant number of blue state Republicans may very well break towards them.

What does that mean? Well, it means that by later this year, there could be a filibuster proof majority in the Senate that favors making American troops surrender to Al-Qaeda in Iraq. If and when we get to that point, it'll only be a matter of time until the Democrats can hand the terrorists a big victory over America.

That's not a happy scenario, but it's where we may be headed...