For many in the world, friend or foe, the McDonald’s corporation is the ultimate symbol of America and its power. It would seem that, from the media coverage of the past week, the Big Mac effect also extends to warfare. If a conflict is not over in the time it takes to acquire and dispose of a cheeseburger, fries and strawberry shake, then something seriously disturbing must be happening. It is the fast-food approach to international relations.

The fatalistic tone of late is extraordinary. That Saddam Hussein has not been deposed in ten days has led to surreal conclusions. All of the basic assumptions on which this campaign was initiated (the importance of US technological superiority, the reluctance of the mainstream Iraqi Army to fight, the willingness of the local population to embrace regime change), it is asserted, must have been mistaken. Anglo-American strategy is in disarray, with troops marooned in hostile territory. It will be months before enough reinforcements arrive. We are now, therefore, on the verge of another “Berlin”, or “Stalingrad”, or “Vietnam”.

The search for the man to blame has even now started in earnest, joined by the likes of Robin Cook, who has “already had my fill” of this war, and Tam Dalyell, the Father of the Commons, who has decided that the Prime Minister is “mad” for having agreed to take part in it. In the United States, the journalist Seymour Hersch, Father of all Conspiracy Theories, is apparently deemed an absolute authority on military politics. Personally, I have already had my fill of the former Foreign Secretary, while Tony Blair should take comfort that to be branded mad by Mr Dalyell is akin to being called ugly by a frog. As for Mr Hersch, it can be only a matter of time before he starts asking whether the US Defence Secretary was in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, or perhaps was once Elvis Presley.

You would think from all this that it was the Iraqi leader who had his tanks sitting 50 miles from the American capital. Yet it is, according to preference, Donald Rumsfeld, General Tommy Franks or Tony Blair who is responsible for the fact that Ronald McDonald is not holding court in Baghdad this morning.

Mr Rumsfeld has been attacked for favouring a “fast and light” approach to war and arrogantly disregarding Pentagon advice. Those who admire the Defence Secretary are meanwhile whispering that the “steady and heavy” formula backed by General Franks is typical of the conservatism and inertia of the military. A further band of armchair warriors protest about the “clean and kind” attitude taken to the civilians, economic infrastructure and even soldiers of Iraq, championed by Mr Blair and Colin Powell. The whole show would have been over already, they moan, if only the allies were not fighting with “one hand tied behind their back”.

This debate is not merely premature but preposterous. It also fits a pattern. At precisely this stage in the Kosovo and Afghanistan adventures, the same sentiments were being expressed — generals and politicians at each other’s throats, imminent stalemate, no realistic hope of a breakthrough. In those days, Mr Cook struck a rather different tone, although Mr Dalyell, to be fair to him, considered both campaigns mistaken. He may rarely be right but, at least, he cannot be condemned for inconsistency.

As for Mr Hersch, his major contribution to the defeat of the Taleban was an “authoritative” article alleging that the Pentagon, with the assistance of an Israeli special operations unit, had contingency plans to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons should that country look unstable. When President Musharraf raised this article with George W. Bush, the President looked him in the eye and, according to Bob Woodward, declared that “Seymour Hersch is a liar”. I would imagine that similar sentiments are being expressed in the White House this morning.

If one really wants to find scapegoats for the failure to liberate Iraq in ten days, then Rumsfeld, Franks and Blair are not legitimate targets. One could instead charge the President of France, the Turkish Government and the administration of George Bush Sr. If the French had been honest about their stance on Saddam Hussein from the outset, then Resolution 1441 would never have been passed and the futile attempt to secure a second resolution not undertaken. What happened instead was that Jacques Chirac’s obstruction bought Baghdad more time to prepare its defences and meant that American and British troops had to fight in worse circumstances than had war commenced last November or December.

Similarly, if the original Rumsfeld plan to fight fast and light had occurred on two fronts — Kuwait and Turkey — then Iraq would have been trapped in a classic pincer movement. It has been the absence of a northern option that has complicated military operations. And if there has been one critical failure of intelligence in this war, it is that nobody in Washington or London appreciated how the legacy of the betrayal of the Shias in 1991 would weigh so heavily 12 years later. For that, alas, the President has suffered for the sins of his father.

None of this is, though, will be of consequence in the end. The core assumptions on which military action was launched have not been disproved and neither “fast and light” nor “clean and kind” have been discredited. The underlying need for speed and flexibility while making unprecedented efforts to limit civilian casualties remains valid. What this conflict requires, and will have, is the equivalent of the Mazar-e-Sharif moment in Afghanistan; a triumph in one place that changes the mood and obliges every actor and faction to reconsider their position. This could come swiftly at Basra, Karbala or al-Nasiriyah. In the end, as one of McDonald’s rivals put it 20 years ago, “where’s the beef?” is the only relevant question in this conflict.

Times Recommends

• In the real world, the public sector must pay
• Playing politics in a land of double Dutch
• Be like the plinth people: not set in stone