It hoped by this means to consolidate its political power at home. I do not mean that the administration launched the war purely in order to gain or keep control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. But if the Republican leaders had suspected that its venture in Iraq would dent their political dominance in the US then surely they would not have become embroiled. Having intervened in Iraq, the decisions they took made sense as part of the administration's domestic political agenda, but not in terms of Iraqi politics.As the US intervention in Iraq soured in the summer of 2003, the White House began to worry about its impact on the presidential election the following year.

It needed to show American voters that progress was being made in Iraq. The result was an artificial timetable of events which could be sold - above all to the US media - back home as a sign that the US had a policy and would stick to it.By November 2003 the White House announced that direct US rule would end the following year. Sovereignty would be handed over to an interim Iraqi government in the summer of 2004. Later it decided that elections would be held in January 2005, a constitution drafted and submitted to a referendum and then fresh elections held by the end of the year.

These plans were presented somewhat hypocritically as the long-term fruit of US policy. In reality, when Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani had first demanded free elections, US officials had objected, citing technical difficulties and saying a census would be necessary first.The real motive was that the US did not want to see the Shia religious parties, some heavily influenced by Iran, come to power. But as the Sunni Arab guerrilla war gathered strength in late 2003 and early 2004 the US could not afford to offend the Shia as well as the Sunni Sistani got what he wanted. The Middle East was on its way to seeing the first Arab state run by the Shia since the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt fell 800 years agoIt was extraordinary to watch the US occupation unravel. In the first year and a half of the war it was still possible to drive out of Baghdad and talk to people in Sunni Arab towns and villages. From early days they were full of rage against the American army.