Five years after it was invaded, Iraq has been broken as a country. Already traumatised by tyranny and war, it has now been torn asunder by an occupation that was certain to ignite violent insurgency, and by a savage sectarian struggle for supremacy. Triumphalist claims by President George W. Bush that the year-long US troops “surge” has turned Iraq around merely add another sorry chapter to this saga of serial delusion and epic bungling.

By any measure, Iraqi society has all but dissolved. Ethno-sectarian cleansing has cut through the tissue of the nation like acid, not just by region but street by street. Iraq has not just fragmented into three big chunks, a Shia south, Sunni centre and Kurdish north; Iraqis were never that neat. The country has unravelled into a terrifying patchwork under the control of competing militias in a multi-sided civil war. Yes, Saddam Hussein, a vile dictator, has gone. But dozens of little Saddams have taken his place.