Commenting on a war that remains unfinished business is probably rather like writing a restaurant review half way through the main course. You can get a sense of the main flavours but the overall impression on the taste-buds remains somewhat blurred. What if the pudding is a disaster? Those thoughts came to mind while listening to President Bush's latest observations on the US military involvement in Iraq which is now entering its sixth year.

With only a few months left in office, Bush made it perfectly clear that the war in Iraq wasn't going to be lost on his watch. Despite the much-vaunted claims about the success of the recent surge there will be no immediate draw-down of US troop numbers and for the rest of the year it's a case of business as usual. This means that 140,000 soldiers will remain in the country to await the orders of their next commander-in-chief.

In making that move Bush has passed the buck to his main man in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who was also in Washington last week to deliver a downbeat assessment to Congress in which he reminded members that no corners had yet been turned and that there were no lights at the end of the tunnel. So, now we know Bush's exit strategy: as the surge is going nowhere fast, let's leave it to the next guy to sort things out.

Coming on top of the inability of the Iraqi forces to deal with the recent insurgency in Basra without calling on coalition support, it begs the question of what options will be available to the next incumbent of the White House. The choices are looking bleak and seem to reduce themselves to the extremes of "stay the course" or "scuttle and run" - neither being particularly pleasing prospects in a week which also revealed that 197,000 US soldiers have been deployed in Iraq more than once and 53,000 have completed three or more tours of duty. It comes as no surprise to find that 27% of the latter have shown signs of post traumatic stress disorder.

Predictably perhaps, Bush's statement of intent prompted the two Democrat hopefuls to re-nail their colours to the mast. With one in three Americans now opposed to the intervention in Iraq the candidates know only too well that votes will hang on whatever line they take concerning the war. Barack Obama was first out of the blocks telling an audience in Indiana that the time has come to bring this war to a close. Hillary Clinton went one better by saying that when she becomes president she will act responsibly and do what has to be done to end the war sensibly.

Not much between them you might say.

Both seem to be committed to bringing this misguided adventure to an end - but there are differences. Obama has never made any secret of his opposition to a war which he has described as "rash" and "dumb". His endgame is to extricate the troops by the end of his first term in office and to place a greater emphasis on returning control to the Iraqi government.

Clinton has come round to that point of view, too, and now admits that her earlier support for the 2003 invasion was a mistake. This is very much a Johnny-come-lately turnaround and it's hard to avoid the impression that she's only adopted it to do herself some good.

As she's trailing Obama in the polls votes will always come before any display of personal morality: hard facts remind us that Bush could not have taken the decision to go to war without the support of prominent politicians of her ilk.

That leaves John McCain. Like Bush he was a great supporter of Petraeus's surge and against all the evidence he believes that military success is within grasp. Mind you, this comes from a man who went to Baghdad exactly a year ago and announced that there were plenty of neighbourhoods where it was safe to go for a stroll. Too bad that at the time he was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was surrounded by 100 carbine-toting GIs. Just what kind of neighbourhood does he live in back home in Arizona?

Later the Republican contender borrowed the Clinton excuse that he "mis-spoke" and that he never meant to say anything of the kind. Now he's rewritten history to say, yes, things are tough in Iraq but any withdrawal or display of weakness would be a stain on Uncle Sam's reputation.

All well and good, but if he becomes president he'd better brush up on his regional politics. During a recent trip to the Middle East he displayed unnecessary ignorance by calling al-Qaeda Shia when most folk know that they are a Sunni terrorist group. Worrying, isn't it?