The US faces a terrible choice – start killing civilians or hand the initiative to Saddam

Lenin remarked that there were decades in which history would stand still, and weeks when it would move forward by a decade. This is one of those terrible weeks when history is on the march. At this stage it is impossible to discern with any assurance the outcome of the war. But so much is already clear: coalition planners have miscalculated.

It was assumed in both Washington and London that the Iraqis would not resist with anything like the skill and ferocity that they have shown so far. It was taken for granted that Saddam, hated by his own people, would be brought down amid a series of popular uprisings. British ministers spoke in private of a war that ‘won’t be over in days but won’t last much more than a week either’. Gordon Brown’s Budget, which is now taking on the air of a very interesting event indeed, was set back to 9 April, by which time it was supposed that hostilities would have ceased.