If the comments on Iraq by Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Joe Biden, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are indicative of their caucus generally, the Senate could have agreement on an Iraq plan the day the lawmakers return from their August break. If only their leader, Sen. Harry Reid, would listen to them.

When responding to questions at a debate Sunday about whether to leave Iraq quickly and completely, Sen. Biden said, “If we leave Iraq and we leave it in chaos, there’ll be regional war. The regional war will engulf us for a generation.” Sens. Obama and Clinton concurred, with Sen. Clinton saying, “This is a massive, complicated undertaking.”

Democrats in Congress, who swept into the majority in 2006 on a wave of anti-Iraq war sentiment, know they have to do something more than simply argue for removing troops. In any event, the Senate is not going to pass a bill on immediate withdrawal, and even six or eight months would be a difficult target. But it could pass – could have passed last month if the majority leader had allowed it – a bill that moves the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group into place, emphasizing protection for Iraqi citizens, diplomatic efforts to create stability in the Middle East region, greater political, economic and military support in Afghanistan, more training of Iraqi forces and a major redeployment of U.S. combat troops out of Iraq. It is especially important to put such an extensive plan in place if Democratic leaders such as Sen. Carl Levin are correct to forecast the end of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as he did Monday.

The Iraq Study Group’s recommendations may not work – it may be that the war was handled so poorly for so long that nothing could help the political situation there now. But the plan does change the mission in Iraq and attempts to meet the obligation the United States has to Iraqi civilians not to leave them in cities where the peace is so fragile. At the very least, it begins a process for withdrawal that anticipates an Iraq without U.S. combat forces, and it does so without creating false hope through deadlines that are certain only in the minds of politicians.

That future under the Bush administration’s surge is difficult to imagine because even as the increased number of troops quiet and hold towns, there is little evidence that peace would remain in their absence. Whatever benchmarks the administration can claim to have met when its members appear before Congress next month, it cannot claim the political progress in Iraq necessary for stability.

That will require a different, broader approach to Iraq, one embodied by the Iraq Study Group and recognized by some of the Democratic presidential candidates. When Congress returns in two weeks, it could restart its discussion on Iraq by passing this legislation.