Defeat is something George Bush does not do, even if all the facts suggest otherwise. Instead, this week the American President set about redefining what he meant by victory in Iraq. "There will be no surrender on the deck of a battleship," he warned, foolishly reminding his audience of his disastrously- misjudged "mission accomplished" speech from the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln. This Mark II scaled-down victory is a very long way from the prototype, with its pro-western Iraqi multi-party democracy to act as a model for the Middle East and ensure the future of American oil imports. Instead, it consists of sufficiently stemming the current blood-letting to be able to present the situation as stabilised. But there are two very big "ifs", either of which could jeopardise the "new way forward", involving the deployment of 17,500 extra American troops to clear and hold areas of Baghdad in preparation for economic development.

The first possible stumbling block is Congress, where both houses are now Democrat-controlled. What has become increasingly clear since Bush's speech is just how isolated he has become. Not only have Democrats been lining up to condemn it as desperate, and even stupid, but many Republicans have joined in the critical chorus. Having defied the opinions of not just Congress but also several senior generals and the Iraq Study Group (his own version of The Wise Men) and with even the ever-loyal Condoleezza Rice sounding less than wholehearted, it is difficult to see how he can possibly build a platform of support for the new initiative. The most recent poll puts his approval rating at just 29%. Whether this translates into the sort of hostile votes that disrupted the funding of the final phase of the Vietnam war is another question. The Democrats' mid-term success delivered only a slim majority and relied partly on selecting conservative-minded candidates. They will find it difficult to reject the President's request for $5.6bn extra funding for the beefed-up strategy for fear of being accused of undermining US security and overstepping their authority. Next week's votes on the issue will be purely symbolic because they are not binding on the White House.

The strategy's second big "if" is its reliance on the Iraqi administration taking on the sectarian militias behind Baghdad's current reign of terror. This is much easier said than done when the government's rule barely extends beyond the "green zone" and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is dependent for parliamentary support on Moqtada al Sadr, the main Shia warlord. The danger is that the death squads will move to a quieter area or lay low until the Americans go home, having claimed a spurious victory, then resume their mayhem.

George Bush has gone down this road because, in a lose-lose situation, what passes for a new strategy is the least unpalatable option. Victory may not look like victory, said Mr Bush. That could be because it is defeat. That is the price for an invasion that should never have happened.