NICK DENTON ASKS: “Is there any way to delay the capture of Baghdad just long enough to first draw in every seething Islamist across the Middle East?” Nick’s mixture of sophistication and practical bloody-mindedness is just what is missing from Europe today. It’s no wonder he lives in the States now.

And, I must say, that has been my reaction to the breathless reports that terrorists were flocking to Saddam’s banner. The more that do so, the more we can conveniently kill wholesale, instead of having to hunt them down in small numbers later. As it is, the “Saddam Fedayeen” with its suicidal yet largely futile attacks has ended the careers of many people we’re better off without. I don’t suppose that was part of the war plan, but it might have been.