If Democrats and Republicans in Congress are ever going to come together on Iraq — and that remains to be seen — the first thing they’re going to have to do differently is change the way they talk about the war.

Democrats have got to stop saying “the War is lost” and Republicans have got to stop characterizing any discussion of eventual withdrawal as “cutting and running.”

The fact is that the war is not lost. And it’s a good bet, too, that we won’t be in Iraq forever.

The time to call a truce on language is now — before General Petraeus’s September report to Congress. Otherwise, the general’s observations are going to get obscured fast by another pointless dust storm of partisan rhetoric.

The American people deserve better than that. After four years of bloodshed, sacrifice, and misinformation, they deserve to hear it straight from Mr. Petraeus; they deserve to know exactly what’s going on in Iraq and if our chances for success are moving forward.

Given that information, the American people will make the right decisions. If they believe we can win — that Al Qaeda can be handed a resounding defeat in Iraq and that a democratic government in Iraq can stand on its own two feet after we leave — the American people will get behind the effort again.

Unfortunately, military victory doesn’t always seem to be the priority in Congress. Electoral victory does. That’s why some House members have been rhetorically sabotaging Mr. Petraeus’s surge since day one. Indeed, some called the surge a failure even before additional American troops reached Iraqi soil. Others waited two or three weeks to declare the surge pointless.

The most damaging action taken by these representatives, though, has been voting to impose artificial withdrawal timelines for our soldiers. They did this at the very same time we were adding 30,000 troops into the Iraqi theater. That’s like sending a boxer into the ring and waving a white towel behind his back. It instructs the opponent to hang on just a little bit longer — and it demoralizes your corner. Our troops have enough on their plates than to have to worry about being undercut at home.

Democrats say that artificial timetables are necessary to light a fire under the Al-Maliki administration to make political progress toward a sustainable Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish power-sharing government. But there is evidence that just the opposite has been true.

Repeated calls in Congress for a withdrawal timetable have encouraged Iraq’s religious factions to prepare for civil war. That means less political negotiating and more weapon stockpiling. One wonders why the Iraqi Interior Ministry just furtively ordered 100,000 black market, Russian-made military rifles.

Both Sunnis and Shiites know that without the relative stability the American military brings to Iraq, all hell is likely to break loose. And who can blame them for preparing for a premature American withdrawal when members of the majority party in Congress are calling for it all day every day?

The Democrats — and the few Republicans who went along with them — are wrong about artificial timetables because they destabilize the very government they purport to be motivating. But that doesn’t make the Democrats unpatriotic. It simply makes them wrong. And Republicans would do well to recognize the difference in their rhetoric about the war.

There are encouraging reports coming out of Iraq now, strongly suggesting that the surge is working, despite its undermining in Congress. These reports are coming from military commanders, as well as journalists who have been less than sanguine heretofore about the war effort.

Some report military turnarounds that are nothing less than astounding, with former Sunni insurgents now fighting alongside American soldiers to rid that nation of hated Al Qaeda fighters, who demonstrated again on Tuesday just how barbaric they can be by bombing Kurdish-speaking towns filled with children. In addition, there are reports of Shiite fighters joining with Americans to combat Iranian-backed Mahdi Army factions responsible for many of the deadly roadside bombs that have killed and maimed our troops.

These Sunnis and Shiites are fighting alongside Americans at great risk to themselves. If the talk of artificial timetables were shelved, how many more might be willing to come over to our side? It’s a question well worth asking.

While the political situation in Iraq remains uncertain, the military situation is looking better than we could have imagined nine weeks ago when the surge was fully implemented. So maybe it’s time for a re-evaluation.

Maybe it’s time for a time-out on timetables — at least until Mr. Petraeus gives his report. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Mr. Wager served in the administrations of Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg. He is a Republican candidate for Congress in New York’s 20th District.