There’s the rub. The strategic end in Iraq has always been political. The military have been the means. The root of failure there, as in Afghanistan, has been the absence of proper articulation between means and ends, between war and politics; or of even the understanding that there is a necessary relationship between the two. But Petraeus gets it. Contrary to much expectation, he has used the surge wisely and well. Violence throughout Iraq is enormously reduced, though he cannot take all the credit. But, when I heard him speak last month, he was still saying that progress was ‘fragile and reversible’. That is because there is no guarantee that the current lull in violence will allow a durable political accommodation to emerge between Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Without that, Iraq will return to hell in a hand-basket — and history’s verdict on Bush and Blair will continue to be harsh and unsparing.

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