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Julia Roberts has a better chance of winning this war
Iraq will surrender its soul to America only when the US army has left

There is growing dissension and dismay in the US armed forces about their prospects of victory in Iraq. The yellow ribbons, lapel pins and yard signs expressing solidarity with the nation's soldiers are still conspicuous around army bases across America. But commanders and soldiers alike are conducting an increasingly anguished debate.

There are four reasons for this. First, many service people are shocked by the incontrovertible evidence that the justifications offered by the Bush administration for invading Iraq - WMD and a link with international terrorism - were false. Second, bitter and painful fighting, notably in the showpiece assault on Falluja, has failed to suppress insurgency. Third, there is deep scepticism about progress in recruiting Iraqis to assume the security burden. Even General David Petraeus, the US airborne general charged with organising Iraq's new forces, is said to be increasingly despondent. And finally, the army and marine corps are acutely aware that they have to sustain the occupation without sufficient troops to control the country effectively.

Having begun the campaign convinced of the justice of their cause and their ability to secure victory, many members of the US military and their families now suspect that the cause may be invalid and the battle unwinnable. ...

...Might not America ultimately prevail in Iraq by means in which armed forces play no part? Consider this proposition from Edward Luttwak, the maverick American strategy guru. In a recent speech to a British audience, he suggested that the US began to win the Vietnam war the day after its envoy was humiliatingly evacuated from the roof of the Saigon embassy in April 1975.

The military conflict was lost - but, argued Luttwak, the US began to achieve victory culturally and economically. Vietnam may still profess a commitment to communism, but in reality capitalism is taking hold at every level. American values, represented by corporatism and schools of management studies, are gaining sway over Vietnam as surely as they are every other nation possessed of education and aspirations to prosperity.

Luttwak describes what is happening as the US acquiring a "virtual empire", founded upon cultural dominance - a convincing proposition, certainly in the eyes of Osama bin Laden, who is attempting to mobilise the Muslim world to resist it. Al-Qaida is seeking to combat through terrorism a cultural invasion more effective than stealth bombers and Bradley fighting vehicles. Bill Gates and Steven Spielberg represent influences much harder to repel than a field army.

Luttwak's remarks raise the fascinating possibility that, while the US might be obliged to abandon its military struggle in Iraq, its values will still triumph. Might Baghdad emulate Saigon in surrendering its soul to the US, in a fashion Bin Laden would find repugnant, long after the last American soldier has gone home?

I am not arguing that military power is redundant. But recent history suggests that America is less skilful in exploiting armed might to fulfil its national purposes than in wielding economic and cultural power, without a soldier in sight.

Last spring in a refugee camp in Gaza, I was quizzing a cluster of children about what they enjoyed watching on television. Without hesitation they cried: "Rambo! Rambo!" It is hard to think of a less appropriate role model.

What seemed significant, however, was not the identity of their icon, but its source. These children's parents had come to fear, mistrust and, often, hate America. Yet Hollywood possesses a power greater than any that President Bush can exercise through the Pentagon. Whatever the political hostility of young Palestinians to the US, they cannot escape its cultural ubiquity. ...