Five years later

President Bush must be one of the few people who might privately see a silver lining to the financial crisis that is engulfing the United States, insomuch as it has diverted attention from the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. When people are worried about jobs, housing mortgage foreclosures and such pressing matters, the issue of a distant war in which the American body count has come down seems less immediate an issue "" although 4,000 Americans have already died in the war (more than in the 9/11 attacks) and the bill is expected to climb eventually to a couple of trillion dollars""many multiples of the initial estimates. Americans may also be diverted in their attention from the domestic costs of the "war" against terror, in the form of a less liberal climate and laws that impinge on civil liberties that were once taken for granted. Only last week, Mr Bush vetoed legislation that would outlaw torture tactics like water-boarding, while legal battles continue over Guantanamo Bay and external rendition cases.

The costs abroad have been equally onerous, in that America's reputation and standing have taken a severe beating "" not least because of the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the success of the "surge" programme, built as it has been on throwing more American troops into Iraq than at any previous stage of the war, underlines the bungling and miscalculations that marked the initial stages of the military campaign and its civilian aftermath. With the original justification, Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction", proving to be a red herring and with Democrats now intent on establishing that deliberate falsehoods were spread on the issue, the domestic political battles may become another legacy of one of the biggest international blunders ever committed by the United States ""especially if all that it achieves is to bring together a Shia-ruled Iraq and one of the countries listed by Mr Bush as belonging to the "axis of evil", Iran.

The question is, what now? It is evident that the US cannot simply up and leave "" Iraq would then slip into an even bigger mess. But what would be the goals to be achieved by staying? Getting the Iraqi economy going again, with normal oil production, has proved an impossible task for the American officials at hand. Western-style democracy may prove impossible to achieve in a country that has effectively become three mutually hostile zones, dominated by the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds. Setting up an Iraqi government that has effective control of the country and broad popular support, is next to impossible since the Shias are unlikely to be kindly disposed to the Sunnis who ruled in Saddam Hussein's time. If the new arrangement has too many losers, it is certain that the result will be more violence "" without a functioning army for the country's rulers to draw on for strength.

With Afghanistan also proving to be an unwinnable war, with Osama bin Laden still abroad, and with Pakistan a less reliable ally than the US might have hoped, it is hard to see what the "war on terror" has achieved "" except if it is to make the claim that all the actions between them have made it impossible for terrorists to strike a second time in the United States. That is of course important, but it may also be just happenstance.