Theatre - David Hare's authentic portrayal of the Iraq debacle. By Michael Portillo Stuff Happens National Theatre, London SE1

''I feel like God wants me to run for president," says the George W Bush character in David Hare's Stuff Happens. Later he senses the hand of the Almighty guiding his administration's decisions on Iraq. But God speaks to him in the voices of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz (Cheney, Rummy and Wolfy, as the British dub them). It is they who, during the Bill Clinton years, called for firmer action against Saddam Hussein, and who, in the days following 9/11, made a link between terrorism and the unfinished business with Baghdad.

Hare skilfully traces how an idea gathers momentum. In a world that, thanks to technology, we can increasingly control and predict, some of the most disturbing and unforeseen events occur because someone somewhere had a thought. It starts as a voice in the wilderness - well, maybe in a think-tank - and makes its way into a White House memo that the president at first overlooks, but later it resurfaces in the brainstorming after the destruction of the twin towers, and that is enough for it to be inserted into the contingency planning of the US military.

The interesting stuff is how the idea flips from being an option to being a policy, and how the presumption switches so strongly in its favour that it becomes difficult for anyone to say no. When the Tony Blair character visits the US president in Crawford, Texas (in this play, he arrives hilariously beset with problems that mean nothing to Bush, from fox-hunting to Railtrack) and the American asks him whether he is onside for the war, he can only answer yes. When the Colin Powell figure, who has toiled to avoid war, is finally told of the president's decision to invade and is asked his view, he acquiesces. As Bush says to him, it would be "a big thing" if he disagreed.

Talking to members of the cast and audience after the show, I was asked if the play seems authentic. It does. That is truly how a crisis develops, and Hare's script captures how politicians - especially of different nationalities - speak to each other. I was not there for any of the events depicted, but it rang true. After Blair is barracked on live television by the audience, he swears at his media handlers and sweeps out with a sarcastic "Thanks, guys!". I have memories of many similar debacles.

We have to remember that Hare selects his material, as he must to create a play, which means that even if every word uttered on stage had been uttered in fact (which Hare does not claim), there is much that we are missing. The Americans would still look as though they had their prejudices and agendas, but they would not look so stupid if their discussions were allowed more context, if their meetings had not had much of the gravitas sucked from them in the edit.

Stuff Happens revealed three interesting points of which I was somehow unaware. First, Blair calls Bush in exasperation during the Afghan campaign to complain that the SAS has been ordered away from its positions, just as it was about to catch Osama Bin Laden. It is astounding, but in similar vein Senator John Kerry, in his first TV debate with Bush, accused the president of subcontracting the task of catching the world's most wanted man to the Northern Alliance. Second, the play tells us that Bush's brief flirtation with the Middle East road map followed a call from Jack Straw to Powell alerting him to how precarious Blair's political position had become. Bush evidently sometimes overrode his cabinet hawks to help Blair. Third, according to Hare, the French, who originally insisted on a "second" UN resolution, then offered to make no criticism if the second resolution were abandoned, because that would have let them off the hook of using their veto. Too late: by then, Blair was ensnared by his commitment to obtain further UN endorsement, and so diplomatic disaster ensued.

The play is the tragedy of those who hoped to get by without a war: Powell and Blair. On the whole, Blair emerges from the play enhanced, for a paradoxical reason. Behind the scenes, we see him writhing with the problems, far from composed, cussing everyone from the Americans to the Iraqis. In public, his performances were so polished and his conviction so Messianic that he benefits from Hare's interpretation of his private doubts and frustrations. He gets precious little appreciation from some of the Americans for the risks he takes. Cheney is in favour of dumping British participation in the Iraq project: "When the cat shit gets bigger than the cat, get rid of the cat."

I do not agree with reviewers who think that Hare has produced a surprisingly balanced piece. It is a polemic. He clearly regards the whole Iraq business as the result of ignorance, cynicism and dishonesty. The play has a rhythm like muffled drums leading us to the scaffold.

It makes for a gripping evening, and the performances by Alex Jennings and Nicholas Farrell as Bush and Blair should not be missed.

Booking on 020 7452 3000 until 6 November

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