As a low, dishonest year nears its end, the online magazine Slate is running a daily Saddameter, complete with witty commentary, assessing the chances of a war with Iraq. In the past week it has shot up from just over 50% to 67%. Yet I don't know anyone in Washington who hasn't felt for some time that the odds were more like 80-90%.

The energy behind this enterprise has such power that it has long been difficult to imagine the circumstances in which it wouldn't happen. Behind the Bushies' enthusiasm for war, the political timetable is creating the same sense of inevitability as the railway timetable in 1914. If the US lost the winter window of climatic opportunity and waited another year, it would allow a new post-Gore Democratic frontrunner (irrelevant whether it's a hawk like Lieberman or a dove like Kerry) to paint Bush as indecisive. Round here, that is the unthinkable.

The government's relish for war suffuses the whole city, yet I have caught no sign of it anywhere outside Washington. Other observers, like Tim Garton Ash, report the same phenomenon. Living here, one begins to feel, after a while, the way hostages do: the Stockholm syndrome sets in. Deep down, one may know the cause is ludicrous, but it so dominates the whole of one's life that after a while the victim gets sucked in and starts thinking these people have a point (I speak as someone who caught himself using the word "gotten" in conversation the other day, which suggests total brainwashing).

Somehow, you have to remember where this started. Fifteen months ago, the US was brutally attacked by terrorists. With international support, it went after the perpetrators, initially with brilliant success that confounded anyone who believed Afghanistan would break even the US army. With the job half done, somewhere around the caves of Tora Bora, it got - what? - bored or distracted or simply confused. Should you ever be charged by a rhino, which has overwhelming force but a tiny brain, your life may be spared in similar circumstances: halfway through, it forgets what it was angry about.

The US chose instead to concentrate on an elective confrontation. It had no credible evidence of a prior connection between its attackers and the Iraqis - though its own policies may have been created such a connection, on the ancient Arab principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend. It had no credible evidence of an imminent threat from the Iraqis (threat = capability + intent). It could make no intellectual case that such a confrontation would lessen the danger from terrorism. Indeed, most analysts were and are convinced it can only increase it.

In pursuit of its policy, the US has invested vast quantities of its political capital, military capability and money even before actually doing anything to dislodge Saddam Hussein. The unintended consequences of that decision are all around us. Indeed, at least three were reported in yesterday's New York Times alone.

1. The Pentagon "is considering issuing a secret directive to the American military to conduct covert operations aimed at influencing public opinion and policy makers in friendly and neutral countries." In other words, the US is losing the argument.

2. Behzad Nabavi, the deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament and a prominent reformer, said pressure from Washington, especially aimed at gaining support for invading Iraq, "has only hurt the cause of Iran's moderates".

3. There was also further evidence of the way the focus on Iraq has inhibited an effective response to the revelations surrounding the nuclear ambitions of both Iran and North Korea. White House officials, when promised anonymity, depart from the published script, the Times reported, and say "there is much more concern that terrorist groups could obtain nuclear technology or know-how from Iran than from Iraq".

That's just one paper on one day. The signs that al-Qaida and its allies across the world - in places as obvious as the Middle East, as remote as Australia and eastern Paraguay - are regrouping, and preparing for new attacks is overwhelming. So are the indications that they are assisted by the way the US diverted so many resources into an entirely different conflict and tossed away global goodwill in the process.

There is no obvious explanation for the US allowing its own agenda to be hijacked in this fashion by a notion that a year ago had minimal support from anyone without a government job or a column in the Washington Post. Oil is one factor, for sure, though I do not accept the theory that is at the heart of some American masterplan. Rather, it is true that an administration run by oilmen undoubtedly has different perceptions from any other. I certainly don't believe that's the whole story.

In general, people have two perceptions of the Bushies: that they are strong, patriotic and fearless defenders of freedom, or that they are dangerous warmongers. There is a third possibility, which has been under-considered: that they are, quite simply, blunderers.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

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