Even Rumsfeld, cocooned inside Bush's bunker, can see it's over

I can reveal this week what the Bush administration is planning for Iraq, and to avoid confusion I will do so by relaying those plans in the exact words used by Donald Rumsfeld. "The plan," he told a Senate committee, "is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one was to occur, to have the, from a security standpoint, to have the Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent, they're able to."

So there it is. Clear-headed. Concise. Far-sighted. And Rumsfeld showed just how closely in touch with reality he is when, in the same week, he compared the "war on terror" with other visionary US initiatives such as the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, Nato and the World Bank. "The biggest problem we've got in this country is people don't study history any more," he said. "There's never been a popular war. Franklin Roosevelt was one of the most hated people in the country."

I have reported before that George Bush inhabits a bubble removed from the outside world and that he actually believes he is a great war leader comparable with FDR and Churchill, but what is most alarming is that people such as Rummy and Condoleezza Rice believe it, too. A kindergarten teacher could tell Rummy that polls taken by the American Institute of Public Opinion, no less, showed that US support for the Second World War never slipped below 75 per cent, even after more than 200,000 Americans had been killed.

Rummy and Condi may still be indul-ging in fantasies inside the Bush bunker, but they are increasingly isolated. While Rumsfeld was turning history on its head, the US ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khal-ilzad, was getting real. The US had opened a "Pandora's box" when it removed Saddam Hussein, he conceded, and Iraq could yet make Taliban-ruled Afghanistan "look like child's play". Seventy-seven per cent of Americans now think civil war "likely" in Iraq; they don't realise it is already happening, but they understand a lot more than their leaders.

If all this makes it seem that Iraq is still in the forefront here, that is misleading. America has moved on from Iraq. It has become an embarrassment, and therefore best ignored. It is now viewed, in fact, as just one of a litany of botches by Bush: social security, Hurricane Katrina, the doomed Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court, Medicare, putting US port security into the hands of Arabs, and so on. US military deaths in Iraq attract little attention now, and the recent murder of a US hostage made only passing news.

I can't remember when I last heard even my senior Republican friends in Washington say a good word about Bush, let alone his Iraq policy. The difference now is that they are saying publicly what they were saying only privately a year ago. Even the likes of Dennis Hastert, the Republican House speaker, no longer bother to hide their contempt.

So what next? Rummy and the administration have said repeatedly that it would be irresponsible to cut and run, so, consistent with their record, they have finally hit on what their policy must be: cut and run. US generals will meet Bush soon to discuss cutting troop levels from the present 130,000, a step Bush and the bunker-dwellers will hail as a triumph. Then it will all start to become the responsibility of the Iraqi security forces to, er, well, deal with, er, to the extent . . . We know what you mean, Rummy. And if the liberated Iraqis start a civil war after that, they will have to clear up the mess themselves.

The US public will accept this because nobody wants thousands more Americans dying in a war that few even try to justify now. They want it over, and what does a little self-deceit matter if it gets the US out of this hell-hole?

Sadly, Americans have been much more exercised about the prospect of an Arab company supervising their ports - a bogus issue fuelled by xenophobia, but one that has brought Bush far more grief than Iraq lately. Midwestern isolationists such as Hastert have seized their chance to take the gloves off: we're talking about the safety of the American people now, buddy, not a bunch of Eyeraquis.

The only piece of good fortune for the Republicans as they head towards mid-term elections is that the Democratic leadership lacks charisma, charm and political nous; even with Iraq and public opinion as they are, no Democrat had the gumption to take on Rumsfeld at that committee hearing. "To what extent are the Iraqi security forces now able to deal with it, Mr Secretary?" was the obvious follow-up, but the mighty senators didn't think of it.

A decent opposition would eviscerate the Republicans this November, but I'm not sure these Democrats will; Hillary Clinton, lest we forget, remains in favour of the war. We may well have a Republican-controlled House, Senate and presidency at least into 2009, when a new president will take over. But with heavyweights such as Bush, Rummy and Condi controlling the world from their bunker in DC, what is there to worry about?

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