A good indicator of the way the wind is blowing in Washington is often the position of Senator Hillary Clinton. A human weather-vane, Clinton has been a long-time supporter of the Iraq war, has visited Iraq, kept close contact with the military, served on the relevant Senate committees, and made hawkish noises that helped her with her rural New York state voters, but slowly alienated her anti-war liberal base.

Now, as with the rest of Washington, she’s shifting a little with the breeze. Yes, she recently voted against both Senate resolutions demanding immediate withdrawal or a fixed timetable for withdrawal. But last week she sent out an e-mail to constituents, finessing things. “We are at a critical point with the December 15 elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home our troops in the coming year,” she wrote.

She still opposes a rigid timetable. But she has made it clear that the Iraqi elections next week will be a critical milestone in the American effort. After that the Iraqis had better step up or the US will start stepping down.

How different is this from the position of the president? On the face of it George W Bush is still insistent on fighting until “victory”, but Washington’s little secret is that the difference between Clinton and Bush is not much more than rhetorical. The president’s “major” speech on Iraq last week was at least an attempt to persuade an increasingly disenchanted public that this consensus-strategy has a decent chance of success.

He even almost conceded he had made a few, er, mistakes. In Bush-speak, a mistake is called a “setback”. He declared, in a clear shift, that foreign terrorists were the smallest part of the insurgency; and that there was still an awfully large amount of work to do before Iraqi forces were adequately trained to maintain any semblance of order. No indication, as the vice-president recently insisted, that the insurgency is in its “last throes”.

Since more than 400 Iraqis were murdered by insurgents last month, compared with 91 in November the year before, even the president’s own tenacious refusal to acknowledge reality has budged a little.

But arguably the most critical element in the president’s speech was the following: “Most Americans want two things in Iraq: they want to see our troops win, and they want to see our troops come home as soon as possible. And those are my goals as well. I will settle for nothing less than complete victory.

“In the second world war victory came when the empire of Japan surrendered on the deck of the USS Missouri. In Iraq there will not be a signing ceremony on the deck of a battleship. Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation.”

Those conditions are clear enough. It is also clear that meeting them in any meaningful sense will take at least two or three years, and, even then, some American military presence will probably be necessary in reserve. It will require a miraculous acceleration of Iraq’s military preparedness, an even more miraculous collapse of sectarianism within the military, and the emergence of an Iraqi government after December 15 that can win over enough Sunni Arab support to keep the country from sliding into a civil war.

Is it do-able? The odds are long, but not inconceivable. Momentum from the election will be essential. Bush is still gambling. At the same time it’s impossible not to sense that in the past month Washington has essentially abandoned any pretence that this war is going to be won any time soon in any meaningful way. The question now is simply how to disengage with the least worst outcome. The change in sentiment was reinforced by Congressman Jack Murtha’s stunning call for immediate withdrawal just a fortnight ago. It has been compounded by a deepening sense of what the conduct of the war has done to America’s moral authority in world affairs.

Are next year’s congressional elections a factor? Much of Washington believes so. I don’t. This president doesn’t need to get re-elected; and he’s smart enough to know that his legacy will be determined far more by resilience and flexibility in Iraq than a few lost seats at home.

We are still a long way from Congress refusing to finance the war, as it ultimately did in Vietnam. The Democrats are already falling into the trap of appearing to celebrate American military defeat. Bush has been saved by his opponents before; and he may be again. Ask Democrats what to do now and they simply say we shouldn’t be where we are. Or they offer up a version of Bush’s plan and claim it as their own. Or they say “Leave now!” and then don’t vote for it. Those are answers from an opposition still unprepared for government.

More interesting will be the deals to be struck by the gingerly withdrawing Americans and those Sunni Arabs prepared to negotiate. Notice that Bush pledged victory against the “terrorists and Saddamists”. He did not pledge victory against the third category of insurgents he cited — the “rejectionists”.

In fact he argued: “We believe that, over time, most rejectionists will be persuaded to support a democratic Iraq led by a federal government that is a strong enough government to protect minority rights.” That’s Bush-speak for let’s make a deal.

Bush’s speech, by emphasising the “rejectionists” as key to the new Iraq, paves the way for the tough dealing that Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq, specialises in. If Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani can prevail upon the majority Shi’ites not to be goaded into civil war, there’s a chance of a half-way decent outcome.

Not a perfect democracy; not a place where terrorists can never hide; not even a place where everyday security can be guaranteed. Just the one country in the Arab world where real freedom actually exists; and where government accountability to the people is constitutionally mandated; and where Arabs and Muslims will take up arms against the Islamist fanatics who threaten them as well as us. It’s still possible; and it would be criminally reckless to lose sight of the chance now.

Times Recommends

• It’s the beginning of the affair
• Afghanistan: still a price worth paying
• Heroes of the downtrodden