Comment.

There is still debate about whether or not his election to the highest political office in the world was even legal. Three years on, political analysts are still emerging to insist that had all the votes been counted back in November 2000, George W. Bush would never have been installed in the White House in January 2001.

It may be a touch naive of me to say so but I thought that was, in an uncomplicated sort of way, what democracy was about--counting all the votes of all the people and acting with the will of the majority.

In any event, Dubya is the man the Americans allowed into the White House and the man we now have to deal with. In the intervening months, high office has not increased the Republican leader's popularity, currently at an all time low because of events in Iraq.

After nine long months of conflict, the Bush Administration is aware there is no quick fix to the situation in Iraq. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld has said there will be a reduction in the number of US troops, by more than 20,000, by Spring 2004. Realists in the Senate question how this can be achieved with levels of violence on the Iraqi street increasing by the day. They argue that the answer lies in sending more US troops, not fewer, to the region. But such a move might signal a desire to crush rather than cooperate with the Iraqi population.

It would certainly not be popular at home where there is growing anxiety about the way Mr Bush is handling the war he announced had ended back in May.

The number of American troops killed in Iraq in the first week of November was already more than the number killed during the whole of October. And Paul Bremer, the presidential envoy to Iraq has warned there will be no let up. "There are going to be increased attacks and increased terrorism because the terrorists can see the reconstruction dynamic is moving in our direction," was Bremer's somewhat simplistic explanation of the violent anti-American episodes. However, it is worth noting that America's top administrator in the country has real concerns about intercepting and averting future actions. "Unless our intelligence gets better, we're going to have a problem," he observed in a frank admission that the coalition forces are largely fumbling in the dark against Saddam loyalists and foreign infiltrators active in Iraq.

Even in Mr Bush's home state of Texas, there are deep concerns that the President may be involved in an unwinnable conflict increasingly being likened to Vietnam.

Undeterred by his critics, Mr Bush insists his plan for Iraq will not be derailed. Indeed, in retaliation to a sharp escalation in attacks on US targets by Iraqi guerillas, orders were given for the Americans to unleash their most furious attacks since the official end of the war more than six months ago, by dropping 500lbs bombs on Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, following the shooting down of a US Black Hawk helicopter and its six man crew there in early November.

If Mr Bush assumes he can crush the Iraqis, he will have a fight on his hands. Most of them were glad to see the back of Saddam Hussein and willing to give the liberating Americans the benefit of the doubt. But instead of reinstating water and power supplies, instead of opening the schools and returning order to the towns and cities battered by the allied bombing, the American powers began securing Iraq's oil wealth, putting in place a personally selected council of prefects and divvying up a raft of billion dollar reconstruction contracts between themselves. The ordinary American soldiers returning home in body bags are not to blame. The responsibility lies at the door of the White House. President Bush has done little to earn the respect of the Iraqi street and should not be surprised that none exists there for him. There may yet be time to turn the tide but it is fast running out.