In an ideal world, George Bush should be tried as a war criminal like an Eichmann or a Milosevic. But it will not happen, because he is the leader of the free world, the president of the only superpower. At best he will be defeated in the next elections should the US voters decide to snub him. Then perhaps he will walk into the twilight of history as the first US president who misled his people.

But meanwhile, Iraq will be left worse than it was found. It is possible that the country might split along its three ethnic fault lines, the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. It is possible that the country will be drawn into a civil war. The suicide bombs, pipeline explosions, mortar attacks, sniper bullets, and every other sort of death and violence will continue to characterise the power struggle in post-handover Iraq. And pretty soon the world is going to learn the true meaning of "Iraqi Freedom.

" The Iraqis will be left alone to stew in their own juice, free to seek their own doom, once the occupation forces are withdrawn.

What looks definite though is that George Bush was wrong to invade Iraq on all counts. By now it is evident that he was wrong about Saddam having WMDs, about Saddam having links with al-Qaeda, about the Iraqi people welcoming the invasion, and about dealing a deathblow to terrorism and its network. A recent survey (mentioned in BBC's Hard Talk by Tim Sebastian) showed that a significant number of Iraqis were in favour of attacks on the occupation forces. The US State Department said in its recent report that the number of terrorist attacks had declined in 2003, then came back quickly to correct its record. The number of terrorist attacks had actually increased in 2003.

It does not make sense that George Bush attacked a sovereign country on flimsy grounds like these. Rather it is terrifying once you think that the most powerful country of the world acted at the behest of a dubious character like Ahmad Chalabi whom it has now openly accused of providing misleading information. Frankly, what does it matter if the world is one dictator less? Come to think of it, even that did not happen. George Bush has taken his place.

If you recall George Bush's vaunted proclamation in which he stated that the invasion of Iraq would send a message from Damascus to Tehran that democracy was inevitable? After the attack on innocent people in Fallujah last week, his proclamation rings hollow because if Saddam made the Iraqi people starve without democracy, George Bush is shoving it down their throat. And history will vouch that in many countries, his country cultured dictators like fish in hatcheries. What is the big deal about diluting one dictator in Iraq in the name of democracy?

But then it also makes you wonder what is George Bush's big idea of democracy. It is amazing how he never realized that the sanctity of democracy is enshrined in the dignity of people, and that the dignity of the Iraqi people was undermined at the first instance when his army occupied their country. It is now clear that these people never welcomed the US invasion, no matter how hard George Bush and his Goebbels tried to prove it to the contrary.

Two mules put together do not make a racehorse. The invasion of a country to remove its dictator does not bring democracy, but an oxymoron. It is amazing why the president of the world's leading democracy fails to understand that democracy is diminished when it is dictated. It is like confidence building. The people must do it themselves instead of watching others do it for them.

By the end of this month, Iraq will be handed over to the Iraqis, at least that is what George Bush and his allies would like us to believe. They are also going to hand over Saddam Hussain to be tried by the Iraqis. But if you really think about it, this was not why the United States went to war in Iraq. It went to war in Iraq because it wanted to eliminate terrorism, and Saddam Hussain as an accomplice. It also went to war because Saddam Hussain was a clear and present danger to its security.

Now the whole thing has got a different spin for obvious reasons. Everything George Bush claimed as infallible evidence, turned out to be a lame excuse. Which reminds me of a Sardarji joke. A Sardarji once went to buy a television and asked the salesman what was its price. The salesman replied that he was not going to sell the television to a Sardarji. The Sardarji went home shaved his hair and took off his turban before he returned to the store to ask for the price. Again the salesman told him that he was not going to sell the television to a Sardarji. When the angry Sardarji asked the salesman how could he tell that he was a Sardarji, the salesman curtly said that only a Sardarji could think that a microwave oven was a television.

The more George Bush emphasises that it was right to go to Iraq and remove Saddam Hussain, the more he reminds us that he has been wrong about both. The ongoing violence in the post-handover Iraq and the charade of Saddam's trial will remind us even more that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, which will raise a pertinent question in sensible minds. What about George Bush and his grand illusions? What about a democratic ruler, who violated the sovereignty of another country on false pretense?

In an ideal world, George Bush would have been accountable for his terrible sins, but we do not live in an ideal world. In that case I would like to suggest something. Saddam should be allowed to take Bush to the court ruling that George Bush had misled his country, so that it cannot escape the fair hands of history. I bet my bottom dollar, a hundred years from now both Saddam and Bush are going to look the same, because both believed that they were right even though they were wrong. Democracy or dictatorship, the danger lies in the shadow boxing

Saddam is a dictator because he forced others to believe in his shadow fighting. Bush is a democrat because he expects them to believe in the shadow he is fighting. Yesterday, the Security Council refused to endorse the US proposal to exempt its troops from prosecution at the International Court. Let us pray that more refusals will come, because in the world of shadow-boxing, light is the only hope.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.