Bush's legacy centres around Iraq. Will America ever leave? In Iraq and Afghanistan the Americans have been trying to establish a government of convenience—friendly to the West, moderate in politics, predictable in business, open to peace with Israel, hostile to Islamic fundamentalists. The United States has been trying to establish such governments in the Middle East for sixty years.

The US has abandoned talk (diplomacy) for force. Its means are now military, since the United States has sent its army to remake the social and political landscape of Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps of their neighbors as well. A long-simmering political struggle for hegemony in the Middle East has been abruptly transformed into a military conflict.

Bush's legacy is that for years, the US has tried to divide the region into US-backed "moderates" (Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf states, Abbas' Palestinian Authority and the Fouad Siniora government in Lebanon) in an alliance anchored by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and arrayed against so-called "extremists" (including Hamas, Hizballah and Syria) whom the US alleged were mere pawns of Iran. The US banned its clients from having any dealings with "extremists," even though this brought Palestine and Lebanon to the brink of civil war.

The shadow that hangs over the region is the US and Israeli escalation towards Iran. For while Arab states have backed away from confrontation, and other adversaries are talking to each other, the US continues to threaten another war.