Leading article: The blame game goes on

How many scapegoats will the US administration run through before it finally takes responsibility for the catastrophe that is Iraq? Sundry low-level Pentagon officials of the neo-conservative tendency were replaced at the start of President Bush's second term. Donald Rumsfeld fell on his sword, not altogether graciously, after the debâcle of last year's mid-term congressional elections. Karl Rove, Mr Bush's "brain", announced his departure rather stealthily in the middle of this year's summer break.

Now the chairman of the US Senate armed forces committee, Carl Levin, has found someone else to blame. After a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan, Mr Levin has urged the Iraqi parliament to replace the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and his cabinet, with a government that is "less sectarian and more unifying".

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The Americans seem to want to have it both ways. On the one hand they want the Iraqis to elect their own government, run their country efficiently and take responsibility for security. On the other - in what would be interpreted under other circumstances as shameless interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country - they want to tell them how to do it.

It is anyway a bit rich for US senators - even Democrat opponents of the war - to express dissatisfaction with Mr Maliki. His position verged on the impossible. He was lumbered with an electoral system and a constitution designed to prevent the domination of any one ethnic or religious group, which almost by definition precluded effective government.

What is more, the mismanaged occupation produced an insurgency that had already developed a life of its own when he came to office. To expect Mr Maliki, his divided government and parliament, to run a "more unifying" government under these circumstances was to demand the impossible. That Mr Maliki is still alive and still hanging on to power, just about, are achievements in themselves.

Which brings us to the most unrealistic aspect of Mr Levin's call. If not Mr Maliki and his "sectarian" government, then who? It took weeks for a prime minister and a government to emerge from Iraq's contentious political process and the real power they wield is negligible. Volunteers to run a country in this debilitated state, even among the most patriotic Iraqis, were few and far between.

If it transpires that Washington can remove Iraqi prime ministers at will, and make them carry the can for its own mistakes and distorted vision, the number of those willing to step forward will dwindle rapidly to none. Requiring a less "sectarian" government in today's Iraq is a recipe not for stronger, more unifying government from Baghdad, but for no central government at all.