Senator John McCain rebooted his campaign last week. His speech tells you a great deal about the state of American politics and the future of the Iraq war.

This is what McCain said of the war he has so persistently supported and the “surge” he has championed: “America should never undertake a war unless we are prepared to do everything necessary to succeed, unless we have a realistic and comprehensive plan for success, and unless all relevant agencies of government are committed to that success. We did not meet this responsibility initially.”

This is what he said about the kind of strategy needed in the future: “We need to marshal all elements of American power: our military, economy, investment, trade and technology. We need to strengthen our alliances and build support in other nations. We must preserve our moral credibility, and remember that our security and the global progress of our ideals are inextricably linked.”

Sounds like John Kerry in 2004, doesn’t he. For the past two years McCain has tried to run as George Bush’s successor. It hasn’t worked. He’s now running as the man who can repair the damage Bush has done.

“When Americans confront a catastrophe, natural or man-made, they have a right to expect basic competence from their government,” he said, with obvious allusions to Katrina and 9/11. Then this: “I know how to fight and how to make peace.” Yes, a Republican is running on his capacity to “make peace”. Well, it worked for Nixon.

Nixon, however, succeeded Johnson. Vietnam was a Democratic war and a Republican could credibly call for peace-making in contrast. But Iraq was deliberately and stupidly exploited by Bush and Karl Rove as a partisan, Republican war. And now the Republicans have to run on it.

Many simply don’t want to. Last Thursday Congress passed an appropriations bill funding the Iraq war but insisting on a timetable for withdrawal. A few weeks ago the Democrats feared they would lose a show-down over supporting the troops. Now the fear is on the other side of the aisle.

Bush will veto the bill – but negotiations are already under way for a possible compromise. It will not be the blank cheque Bush and Dick Cheney want. And it won’t be that because the Republican party has decided to start distancing itself from the commander-in-chief.

Republican senators Gordon Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska both voted for the withdrawal bill. Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine voted against but noted that her patience was wearing thin. McCain took the occasion to describe the war as “a great tragedy”.

Virginia’s Senator John Warner is perhaps the man to watch. He’s a solid Republican with deep ties to the military. He wants a bill that sets benchmarks for Nouri al-Maliki’s government on matters such as political progress, sectarian reconciliation and an oil deal, benchmarks that could precipitate withdrawal if they aren’t met.

He’ll find plenty of moderate Democrats to sign on – and a veto-proof bill might emerge. The news that the Iraqi parliament is planning a recess of two months this summer has only weakened Bush’s hand. Many observers don’t believe al-Maliki could deliver even if he wanted to.

The polls show a cratering of public support for the war. Three months into the “surge”, 49% of Americans say conditions in Iraq have worsened, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last week, and 37% see no change. Only 12% see an improvement and 55% believe the war is already lost.

Moreover, Americans believe the war is by far the most important issue, hence Barack Obama’s seemingly unstoppable rise.

His quote last Thursday was another shrewd soundbite. Referring to the bill Bush has said he will veto, Obama declared: “We are one signature away from ending the Iraq war.” There’s a reason another 40,000 donations came in to his campaign in the first three weeks of April. He is riding a wave of discontent.

In a sign of the quandary of any pro-war Republican in this climate, Rudy Giuliani said last week: “I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defence. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation, and we will be back to our preSeptember 11 attitude of defence.” Translation: vote for the other guys and we get attacked again.

But if he is accusing the Democrats of waving the white flag, he is also laying the same accusation against 55% of the electorate, and key members of his own party. McCain’s pitch was more attuned to the mood of the country. No mystery, then, why Giuliani has been slipping somewhat in the polls, and McCain is stabilising.

The question, of course, is whether Americans are being defeatists or realists. One way of answering this question is to ask another: if they are being defeatist in Iraq, who are they conceding defeat to? If it’s to Iraq’s Shi’ite majority, then it’s not a defeat but a victory. If it’s to the Kurds, then, again, it’s a win.

Saddam is gone. There is no longer any potential threat of weapons of mass destruction from a failed Iraqi state. The actual reasons for fighting this war in the first place have therefore evaporated.

Bush says it would be a defeat against Al-Qaeda. But Al-Qaeda was not the presence in Iraq before the war that it is now. And occupying a Muslim country indefinitely is not exactly a way to staunch jihadist recruits either.

Most grown-ups in Washington, even Obama, are arguing for a redeployment out of Iraq that would retain an active potential to take on Al-Qaeda if it were to establish an enclave in Iraq more dangerous than the base it has already established in Pakistan. And if Iraq’s Shi’ites and Sunni tribes take on Al-Qaeda in Iraq, then we will have scored a huge victory by exposing the real battle that can only be fought by Muslims against other Muslims.

These arguments are not peacenik or liberal or defeatist. They are simply a recognition of fact. The fact is that a majority of Iraqis want the Americans to leave Iraq soon; and a solid majority of Americans want the same thing. Nothing looks as if it will change those two facts in the near future. And for Republicans facing an election next year, the near future is beginning to look alarmingly imminent.

Times Recommends

• The ghost of Robin Cook haunts Chilcot’s feast
• The truth shouldn’t need oaths
• Violence: let’s separate the men from the boys