Democrats have warned that Ms. Palin, a first-term governor, is woefully inexperienced and is not qualified to serve a “heartbeat” away from the presidency. In her first interview for over two weeks, the 44-year-old mother of five struggled, when asked her views of the Bush doctrine, which states the United States will mount a preemptive strike against a looming threat if it deems itself at risk.

A man remembers getting broken: that’s why Senator McCain fought the use of torture by the Bush administration. His condoning of Gov. Palin’s mocking of legal rights is appalling. Foreign policy be damned if you can score a God-fearing macho-versus-liberal constitutionalist point.

Labor’s policy on Afghanistan has consistently been that Australia’s presence there, rather than Iraq, represents our commitment to fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban at “the coalface”. But the promises Labor made while in Opposition are forcing our troops into a long fight that will test even the might of the United States.

Canberra’s defence spending has leapt by about 56 per cent in the past seven years to $25.66 billion, meaning it now spends more than some European Union countries. However, Australia is still dwarfed by the US, which has set aside $US696.30 billion ($832.7 billion) for its armed forces this year.

Monday’s turnover of responsibility to the Iraqis for security in Anbar Province, once Iraq’s most violent territory, serves a purpose for each man. It allows President Bush to claim that five years after the invasion, Iraq is achieving stability, and it allows Senator McCain to argue that he was the first to come up with the winning strategy.

Baghdad in 2008 is a city tantalisingly close to a genuine transformation. The first impression after an absence of two years is the stunning reduction in the appalling level of violence that had torn the city’s suburbs apart over the past four years. A relative calm has now descended. On the day I arrived, there was not a single serious security incident across the whole of Baghdad.

General Petraeus, the principal architect of the successful 2007-08 surge of US troops that restored security across Baghdad, says the signs of positive change are everywhere. “We have gone from a situation where 14-15 months ago there were 180 attacks a day in Iraq. Now there are on average about 25 attacks a day,” he said.

Thousands of protesters, many of them demonstrating against the war in Iraq, marched on Monday through the streets outside the arena where the Republican National Convention is being held, with some smashing windows and battling with the police in clashes that led to more than 250 arrests.

Senator Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq — Senator Obama opposed it from the start — Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President George W. Bush’s policies in Iraq.

US combat troops could leave Iraq by 2011 under the terms of a deal awaiting approval by Iraq’s parliament and presidency, an Iraqi official has said. The draft security agreement also calls for US forces to withdraw from all Iraqi urban areas by June 2009, and includes a compromise allowing US soldiers some immunity under Iraqi law.