In the case of Iraq, so great has been the White House preoccupation with not being Bush-like that it has no other policy. Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State, famously invoked the “Pottery Barn rule” – “You break it, you own it”. Mr Obama thought that he did not break it himself (which was true), and drew the mistaken conclusion that therefore he did not own it. He did own it, simply because he is President of the United States. When he disowned it, in 2011, he ensured that it would break once more. No doubt his administration is right in all the hard things it lays at the door of the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. But that is no self-exculpation. America left the country to him, declaring it stable. Yesterday, Mr Obama described the current situation as a ''regional problem’’, which wrongly implies that it’s not much to do with him.