The Democrats want to split from Iraq but are divided over how to tuck tail and run. Dan Balz in The Washington Post summarizes the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee and reveals that the 10 candidates spent most of their time in their speeches trying to one up each other in calling for America’s defeat in Iraq.

The war in Iraq is shaping the opening stages of the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, just as it did in the 2004 campaign.

After 10 candidates’ speeches over two days at the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, the war proved again to be the central point of differentiation among the party’s presidential contenders.

What emerged was a division over how to stop the war, one likely to intensify as Congress debates measures ranging from a nonbinding resolution condemning President Bush’s proposal to send more troops to Iraq to more controversial legislation that would restrict or cut off funds for the military mission.

Four years ago, former Vermont governor Howard Dean tapped into the growing opposition to the war among party activists and turned a long-shot candidacy into a force to be reckoned with until his campaign imploded in Iowa.

Now everyone running opposes the war, but the self-styled outsiders in the race — those not in the Senate — see political gain in pressing for a speedy end to the war, and in the process they are putting pressure on prominent candidates such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) to follow suit.

“As someone who served in Congress for 14 years, I know the power they hold, should they choose to wield it,” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told the DNC yesterday at the Hilton Washington hotel. “The Congress passed a resolution authorizing war. They need to pass another one that overturns that authorization and brings our troops home by the end of the calendar year.”

Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) was equally adamant on Friday that members of Congress stand up against the president. “It is a betrayal not to stop this president’s plan to escalate the war when we have the responsibility, the power and the ability to stop it,” he said. “We cannot be satisfied with passing nonbinding resolutions that we know this president will ignore.”

Edwards favors an immediate withdrawal of up to 50,000 troops, with the rest brought home within 18 months.

Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack was just as pointed in calling for congressional Democrats to act boldly to stop the war. “I think Congress has a constitutional responsibility and a moral obligation to do it now,” he said yesterday. “Not a cap, an end. Not eventually, immediately. Those who voted for the war, those who voted to continue to support the war, those who voted to continue funding the war can surely vote to stop the war.”

Clinton on Friday defended her support for a nonbinding resolution expressing disapproval of the plan to send more troops to Iraq, but she made a point to say that she is now ready to press for tougher action.

“I want to go further,” she told the audience of Democrats who will be delegates at the party’s national convention in 2008. She outlined other steps she has proposed to cap the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and pressure the Iraqi government. But she has so far resisted embracing any timetable for bringing home the troops.

Obama, who is to formally launch his candidacy Saturday in Illinois, opposed the war initially and last week moved past Clinton with a proposal to withdraw virtually all U.S. forces by March 31, 2008.

But in his speech on Friday, Obama was less explicit than other Democrats about the way forward. Calling the war “a tragic mistake,” he said, “We all have a responsibility now to put forth a plan that offers the best chance of ending the bloodshed and bringing the troops home.”

Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned Bush in harsh language yesterday. “Mr. President,” he said, “the majority of Americans who oppose you in Iraq are not the ones emboldening the enemy. That’s the one mission you have accomplished.”

Biden said he would do “everything in my power” to block the president’s decision to deploy more troops. His broader proposal calls for a political solution that would provide regional autonomy for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds and guarantees by the central government that Sunnis would share in the country’s oil revenues. He wants to draw down U.S. forces.

There is more. Balz writes that Joe Biden helped himself more than any of the other candidates at the meeting.

By that measure, Biden was the big winner. The normally windy senator delivered the shortest speech of the weekend. He opened with another apology for describing Obama as an African American who is “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” a comment that ruined the opening day of his campaign Wednesday.

“So, how was your week?” he began, to laughter. He quickly turned contrite: “I want to say that I truly regret that the words I spoke offended people I admire very much.”

Balz mentions nothing of the invocation given at the Democrat National Committee meeting by Imam Husham Al-Husainy of Dearborn, Michigan. Al-Husainy called for an end to the occupation and oppression and for those present to find the right path.

Right path to where? Islamism? Occupation and oppression of whom or what? America, Iraq, Israel? The Democrats, according to Powerline, bowed their heads quite piously while the Imam, known more for leading demonstrations supporting Hezbollah in Michigan, called for the assembled multitude to convert.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects are warning the administration not to attack Iran.

It’s only Sunday morning. How will the Democrats top their callous, calculated, and cynical calls for cutting and running today?