Two seemingly contradictory things are happening in the US. At the very moment when anti-war sentiment has triumphed, the anti-war movement appears to have stalled. Those who call the Iraq war an epochal catastrophe have won the battle for public opinion – decisively and irreversibly. A New York Times poll in late July showed that 76 per cent of Americans thought the war was going badly or very badly, and 61 per cent rued the decision to invade.

You would never guess this by looking at the mood of American politics. A month ago, George W. Bush vetoed a supplemental defence spending bill that contained a deadline for removing troops from Iraq. Democrats were sharply divided on whether they should offer the president a new bill with the deadline taken out or stake everything on ending the war through an apocalyptic budget confrontation. They chose the former route. In late May, the new deadline-less version passed 280-142 in the House and 80-14 in the Senate, with mostly Republican votes.