When you compare the politics of George W. Bush’s drive for an immigration policy overhaul with his standoff with Congress on the Iraq War, there is one major difference: The president and the Democratic leaders are at least willing to talk with each other about a path to citizenship for illegal workers.

On the way forward in Iraq, however, it looks as though Bush and the Democrats running Congress will not even have an actual conversation anytime soon. When the top Democrats go down to the White House this week, they expect the president to make good on his promise that he won’t even entertain a discussion about negotiating a compromise. Instead, after a meeting without any talking, Congress seems ready to clear a war spending bill that calls for a summer 2008 troop withdrawal, which the president seems sure to kill with a veto.

In stark contrast, debating the nation’s immigration laws presents an opportunity for common ground of historic import between Bush and Capitol Hill’s Democratic powers. They mostly agree on a desire to ease citizenship requirements for people now in the United States illegally — unlike the fierce divide between the president and many in his own party.

Last week Bush sought to jump-start the dealmaking with Congress. He reiterated his long-standing immigration agenda on a trip to Yuma, Ariz., where a high-tech security fence is under construction along the Mexican border. While trying to emphasize successes in stemming the flow of illegal immigrants — in a bid to please conservatives who passionately oppose him on this topic — the president returned to the “path to citizenship” theme that the Republican-run Congress refused to seriously consider during his first six years in the Oval Office.

“We’re working closely with Republicans and Democrats to find a practical answer that lies between granting automatic citizenship to every illegal immigrant and deporting every illegal immigrant,” Bush said after touring the border fence.

Liberal Democrats were quick to praise those remarks, something that not been heard very often in Washington during the Bush years. “There is a lot of common ground,” declared Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Still, assembling a congressional majority for a Bush-backed immigration bill could get nearly as dicey as producing a war spending plan to his liking. While most Democratic leaders are in sync with the president on the issue, plenty of lawmakers in their party side with conservative Republicans, on the grounds that what Bush wants amounts to an “amnesty” program that encourages law-breaking and would be an affront to those immigrants who abide by the law.

The trouble that Democratic leaders would face belies the conventional wisdom, which is that the issue poses an easy opportunity for the president to achieve a rare feat of political triangulation on a big policy dispute, similar to what President Bill Clinton did with welfare. Clinton, a Democrat, won enough support from the majority Republicans at the Capitol to compensate for the weak levels of support within his own party, where liberals — including some in his own White House — were infuriated by the restrictions on cash aid for the poor.

Look no further than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s posture toward immigration to see the difference from a decade ago, when GOP leaders clamored for welfare reform. She did not include any mention of the issue in her “first 100 hours” campaign manifesto, which was consciously limited to proposals that could attract virtually unanimous support within the Democratic Caucus. And these days, Pelosi has said the Senate will have to go first on immigration — passing the buck to Majority Leader Harry Reid, who probably doesn’t view that as any favor to him. Reid has also shown little appetite for this debate.

The difficulties that both Bush and Democratic leaders face within their own parties seem likely to force them to work as a team if they want to act on immigration. Unlike the Iraq confrontation, they at least share the same basic goals, meaning their dealings would be more about strategizing than about hard-nosed negotiating. They are at least set for a series of meetings to work out a joint plan for tackling an immigration overhaul.

Given the harsh language on the war going back and forth between Bush and Democratic leaders, a joint effort on immigration could serve as a tool for them to get to know each other a bit better. It could almost be like marriage therapy for couples who are directed to work out the small stuff before they tackle the really big problems.

It might be naive, but you have to wonder if during coffee breaks in those talks on a path to citizenship, the Bush team and the congressional leadership might just strike up a productive chat about the way forward in Iraq.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.