Bush hoisted by his own petard

Not from the Oval office but from the White House library, a chastened US president addressed his nation. Gone was the "bring 'em on" arrogance, instead an admission of mistakes but, disturbingly, there remained the refusal to acknowledge just how serious the situation is.

Iraq was previously described by Bush as the frontline on the war on terror. Even Bush does not believe that nonsense any more, or else why the small troop surge? The 20,000 extra troops will make no practical difference to securing Baghdad, not if the numbers already there cannot.

The surge - the White House cannot call it an escalation as Vietnam was "escalated" and the word is banned in White House lexicon - is a cynical ploy by an exhausted president to show he can still issue orders that contradict common sense.

Bush has ignored the message of the mid-term elections, the Iraq Study Group, Congress, his own top generals and world opinion.

Death squads roam Baghdad's streets. On Tuesday, a typical day, more than 40 bodies were found. This so-called surge will not change the dire situation; no death squads will halt their macabre work, the ethnic cleansing of neighbourhoods will not cease.

Bush has little time for history. But no other president has experienced such a wartime catastrophe since the hapless fellow Texan, Lyndon Baines Johnson, whose political reputation never recovered from Vietnam.

The trouble is Iraq is far worse than Vietnam. America's loss of prestige in the Middle East damages it to a far greater extent than defeat at the hands of the Viet Cong.

Bush's address lacked strategy and vision. Instead of engaging Iraq's neighbours he threatens them. Instead of acknowledging the collapse of order in Baghdad, he denies its severity by sending so few troops. He has spurned good advice and taken the wrong course.