This is all the more amazing because the US made a heavy investment in blood and treasure to liberate Iraq and put it back on the road to recovery. Between 2003 and 2011, when the last US troops pulled out, more than 1.5 million American military personnel served in Iraq. Of those, a total of 4,475 were killed in action and a further 32,225 were wounded. In addition more than a million civilian Americans also worked in Iraq, many as volunteers pouring in to build schools and clinics and repair damaged infrastructure. More than any Muslim country, Iraq has a bond of blood with the United States. And yet the Administration continues to push it towards Iran as Obama continues his campaign of hatred against Bush. 

Obama is determined to script his own version of the Bush "Freedom Agenda". While Bush allied the US with Shias and Kurds in Iraq, and Tajiks and Shia Hazaras in Afghanistan against the Sunni-dominated regimes of Saddam and the Taliban, Obama has forged an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, helping it reap the fruits of the Arab Spring from Morocco to Egypt, passing through Tunisia and Libya.

Endgame is a fascinating sequel to Gordon and Trainor's earlier book on the Iraq war, Cobra II. Even those who closely followed the Iraqi drama from start to finish could still learn from the new information and the perceptive analysis the authors provide. Endgame is interesting for another reason: it provides an inside view of the infighting that accounts for much of what passes for politics in the US. The degree of personal jealousies, sectarian feuds and partisan hatreds, even within the military elite, send shivers down many spines. This is a brutal zoological study of American politics in which most players are more concerned about "what is in it for me" than the broader, and necessarily hard to gauge, interests of the nation.

It is against that background that one should ponder Khomeini's notorious dictum about an America that, constantly divided against itself, "cannot do a damn thing". In Tehran today that perception is more alive than ever, preventing the Iranian leadership from taking Buchan's advice by throwing in their weak hand before their bluff is called.