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Seasoned observers find preposterous the prospect that a crash training program could double the size of both the police and the army and turn them into effective, upright and independent security forces in the space of two years or so. (Obama wants to begin drawing back down U.S. forces in only 18 months.) Nor would mere basic training address the problems of illiteracy, drug use, corruption, desertion and ethnic grievances.

Obama is in danger of being misled by the inside-the-Beltway think tank consensus on what happened in Iraq, and of applying those "lessons" to Afghanistan. Even if the two actually resembled one another, the Washington story about Iraq is full of holes. But they are very different countries, societies and situations. Bush caught a break with his surge, inasmuch as it coincided with a massive shift in the local power balance. Obama will have to be very lucky indeed to catch a similar break in Afghanistan.

He said, in his opinion, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was legal – a view rejected by critics who say it violated international law – but was of "questionable legitimacy." "It did not have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states, or even perhaps of the majority of people inside the U.K.," he said. In London, an anti-war rally in 2003 drew an estimated 2 million demonstrators – the largest street protest in a generation.