Yes - McCain with his Vietnam experience and time in the senate was the US politician best placed to oppose, perhaps even stop, the Iraq war where there was obviously a grave risk that to vote for it - a second war leaving Afghanistan perilous unfinished business - was to risk at the same time not only a second "Vietnam" in Iraq, but a third "Vietnam" in Afghanistan.

The first security job of the next president will be to try to avoid both these new potential "Vietnams". How can McCain, let alone the totally inexperienced Mme Palin (with, we are told, a one in seven actuarial chance of being president by 2012) possibly succeed in this?

No - experience does not automatically qualify. Look at Cheney and Rumsfeld with perhaps more hands-on experience of security and defence maatters than anyone else. They got us into the worldwide catastrophe of Iraq. Not just military, but financial.

Curious that the overall cost of "Iraq" to date is around $700bn, financed by borrow-all-the-way: the same figure as is now assessed as needed to resolve the financial meltdown. The financial demands of "Iraq" are to a large extent responsible for this financial crisis.

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