Nor can any silver lining be detected in the larger political military picture, in terms of erosion the Shia majority coalition, seriously reducing the power of Moqtada al-Sadr, or denting the Sunni resistance.

But on the home front, Levin, Clinton and other leading Democrats are determined not to be wrong-footed by White House attacks accusing them of stabbing America's fighting men and women in the back by questioning the surge's supposed success. Flag-wagging and drum-thumping is traditional at Veterans of Foreign Wars' conventions.

In a rhetorical counter-move, the Democrats' emphasis on the failure of Bush's man, al-Maliki, to resolve Iraq's political divisions at equal speed. Amid their rather hollow assertions of confidence in al-Maliki, Bush and the Republicans recognise that al-Maliki is expendable and can be forced out, just as his predecessor was ditched.

Here's where al-Maliki should take a look at a dark episode in Vietnam not long before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. A few weeks earlier in