Growing doubts among U.S. Republican lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame, the report said, citing lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.

Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence, the report said.

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates are hammering Republican candidates for backing a failed Iraq policy, and Republican defense of the war is growing muted.

Few officials in either party are talking about an immediate pullout of U.S. combat troops. But interest appears to be growing in several broad ideas. One would be some kind of effort to divide the country along regional lines. Another, favored by many Democrats, is a gradual withdrawal of troops over a set period of time. A third would be a dramatic scaling-back of U.S. ambitions in Iraq, giving up on democracy and focusing only on stability.

Many senior Republicans with close ties to the administration also believe that essential to a successful strategy in Iraq are an aggressive new diplomatic initiative to secure a Middle East peace settlement and a new effort to engage Iraq's neighbors, such as Syria and Iran, in helping stabilize the country -- perhaps through an international conference.

Many Senate Republicans are waiting for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel co-chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a Republican, and former Indiana Congressman Lee H. Hamilton, a Democrat.

Both Baker and Hamilton have made it clear that they do not see the administration's current Iraq policy as working -- though they do not plan to issue recommendations until well after the midterm elections, probably in early January.

How open Bush will be to a change in course is unclear, even as the violence escalates. In recent remarks about Iraq, Bush has sounded a more flexible tone, saying he is open to suggestions for changes and emphasizing that his commanders adjust tactics constantly. He has repeatedly made it clear that U.S. patience with the new Iraqi government is not open-ended.

Along with the political debate, there also is growing frustration inside the U.S. military over Iraq, with some officers debating privately whether the situation there is salvageable.

In recent weeks, senior military officers have offered a torrent of negative comments, a sharp contrast to the official optimism of the past three years, the report said.

Source: Xinhua