Democrats have now used their slender margins of control in both houses of Congress to attach troop withdrawal timetables to pending Iraq war spending bills.

The Senate bill passed Tuesday would provide $122 billion, mostly for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (though considerable embarrassing domestic pork was thrown in, as always); and would require the president to begin pulling an unspecified number of combat troops out of Iraq within 180 days of the bill's enactment, with the "nonbinding goal" of completing the redeployment within a year.

The Senate bill says some troops could be left behind to conduct counterterrorism missions and train Iraqi forces.

The House war spending bill passed earlier this month would provide $124 billion in emergency spending and would switch the deadlines, requiring the president to begin pulling combat troops out of Iraq within a year and to complete that redeployment within 180 days.

But the House bill would require the president to begin pulling troops out as early as July 1 if he cannot certify that the Iraqis are making progress to reduce the nation's violence. It would also allow some troops to be left behind to conduct counterterrorism missions and train Iraqi forces. Which is either logistical nonsense or a loophole you could drive a truck through, depending on your point of view.

Both votes mark a repudiation of a plan Bush announced earlier this year to temporarily "surge" the number combat troops in Iraq. There are about 141,000 U.S. troops there now, with about half the reinforcements in place and the rest due to arrive in June.

What are the Democrats really up to?

These votes make it sound like they believe the war in Iraq is a useless waste of lives, and they want to pull out. It sounds that way because it's meant to sound that way.

Mind you, Congress has the power to force just that. The legislative branch controls the purse strings. They could shut off all tax funding for military operations in Iraq tomorrow.

So why don't they? Why the "non-binding" resolutions? Why all the saber-rattling, when the president has said again and again he intends to veto any spending bill that contains such withdrawal deadlines?

What's going on is that the Democrats know perfectly well the president is right when he said in a speech Wednesday, "The consequences of imposing such a specific and random date of withdrawal would be disastrous. Our enemies in Iraq would simply have to mark their calendars. They'd spend the months ahead plotting how to use their new safe haven once we were to leave. It makes no sense for politicians in Washington, D.C., to be dictating arbitrary time lines for our military commanders in a war zone 6,000 miles away."

Democrats don't want to be held responsible for the massacres of those who have tried to help build a democratic Iraq, for the videos of triumphant Wahhabi terrorists dancing on wrecked American equipment that would inevitably follow any quick retreat. They're happy to see the war continue, so long as they can arrange things so only Mr. Bush takes the blame.

Instead, their real goal here is to "send a message" to that element of their own core constituency that opposes the war -- that opposes any aggressive response to Islamic terrorism in favor of appeasement, in many cases. They saw the power that core constituency had in depriving pro-war Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of his own party's nomination last year, and hope to avoid his fate.

Will anti-war Democrats -- who, again, have every right to hold such a position -- fail to see through such posturing?

That remains to be seen.

The real problem, though, are the other "messages" Democrats thus send. To our enemies, as the president notes, this clearly means, "Bide your time. America lacks patience. The random mass murders are working. Keep up the good work."

To our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines overseas, the Democratic message is, "We have no intention of approving either the funding or the tactics that would allow you to win."

And finally, to those Iraqis who have tried to step forward and help build a more pluralistic, democratic nation? The message is: "You believed that stuff? Ha!"

At this point, the real question for Democrats should be: If this is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, where is it you intend to fight those who murder our innocents and wish to see us destroyed?

When? Where?

And once you're in charge, why should we believe that the polecat will change its stripes -- that you mean to finally take the gloves off and fight that war to the finish, no matter what it takes?