Blood, tears and still no victory GEORGE BUSH returned to the Middle East this week a diminished figure. At home he has been thumped by the voters. In Iraq his dreams of an example-setting democracy have trickled away in blood. For all the brave words he exchanged with Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, in Amman at mid-week, it is widely assumed that his real aim now is simply to arrange a way for America to leave Iraq as soon as it decently can. Only then would the Republicans have a chance of retaining the White House in 2008. And only after it has left Iraq will America be able to restore its tattered influence in the wider Middle East.

Such, at any rate, is the conventional wisdom. But is it correct? And did anyone tell Mr Bush? The president certainly faces a daunting array of problems in the region. In this special section we look at four of them: actual civil war in Iraq, potential civil war in Lebanon, the stalemate in Palestine and the hostility of an Iran that seems intent on acquiring nuclear weapons. And yet despite all that has gone wrong in Iraq, America remains by far the strongest external power in the Middle East—and for the next two years Mr Bush will remain its president.

On his way to Amman, Mr Bush did not talk as if he felt like a weakling. He insisted at a NATO summit in Riga that American troops would not leave the battlefield until the mission in Iraq was complete. And after meeting Mr Maliki in Amman, he promised again that the troops would stay just as long as Iraq's government wanted them to. Liberty had to prevail in the Middle East, the president declaimed, “and that's why this business about graceful exit simply has no realism to it at all.”

Realism is in the eye of the beholder. The fact that Mr Bush met Mr Maliki in Jordan's capital rather than in Baghdad highlights how anarchic Iraq has become. Most of Iraq's politicians claim to want the same thing America wants: a united, non-sectarian state and an end to the violence that has killed tens of thousands in the past year alone. But with a diffuse network of Sunni guerrillas pitted against equally disorganised Shia militias, nobody has the authority to deliver. The governments that are party to the conflict, in Iraq and beyond, are several steps removed from the actual killing: all they can do is to cajole others to cajole the armed groups.

Mr Maliki succeeded in pressing Mr Bush to allow more Iraqi soldiers to come under his direct control. At present most of them answer to the American chain of command. But this will not have a huge impact on the ground. Building up the Iraqi army, which suffers badly from ill-discipline and sectarian tensions but still appears to respond, more or less, to the prime minister's orders, is taking time. “It's not easy for a military to evolve from ground zero,” Mr Bush conceded.

Another basic problem is the domestic political weakness of Mr Maliki. After their meeting, Mr Bush said that the Shia prime minister was “the right guy” for Iraq and that it was in America's interest to help him. Privately, however, the Americans are increasingly unhappy about supporting a government that does not appear to be making enough effort to restrain Shia militias and reach out to the Sunnis

Behind the scenes, Mr Bush probably tried to encourage Mr Maliki to detach himself from Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric whose followers are believed to be responsible for a large share of the sectarian killing. Mr Maliki, however, needs Mr Sadr, who is one of the few leaders to have any influence over the Shia sectarian gangs, most of which claim association with his Mahdi Army but in practice operate autonomously. The young firebrand does appear to be doing a bit to restrain his more out-of-control followers.

Before the summit, the New York Times published a leaked memo written by Stephen Hadley, Mr Bush's national security adviser, saying of Mr Maliki that he “wanted to be strong but was having difficulty figuring out how to do so”. The memo emphasised Mr Maliki's need to put some distance between himself and Mr Sadr. Mr Sadr is meanwhile putting pressure on Mr Maliki to distance himself from the Americans. After a triple car-bombing in the Mahdi Army's east Baghdad support base of Sadr City killed more than 200 people last week, Sadrist officials said that the Americans were primarily to blame for failing to provide security. They threatened to pull out of the government if Mr Maliki went through with his meeting with Mr Bush, though in the event, the Sadrists merely “suspended participation”, a good step short of a full walk-out.

In Washington, debate is transfixed on the report expected next week from the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan committee promising sagacious advice on how America can best extract itself from the quagmire (see article). One much-leaked idea is said to be for American talks with Iran and Syria about how they could help calm Iraq, perhaps in the context of a regional peace conference that would touch on Palestine too. But Iran and Syria do not feel they need America's invitation to become involved. Syria established formal ties with Baghdad last week after a break of 25 years. This week, Iraq's president visited Tehran (see article) while Mr Maliki was packing for Amman. Iraq's neighbours have their own interest in limiting the chaos. That does not make them eager to help America. And nor did Mr Bush say anything in Amman to suggest that he is in the market for that “graceful exit”. Economist