WASHINGTON - If Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki were inclined to bet his life on President George W Bush's latest assurances that there will be no timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq, he should probably give it a second thought.

While Bush, true to his self-image as an uncommonly firm leader in the mold of British prime minister Winston Churchill, is undoubtedly sincere in his determination to press ahead, political circumstances - not to mention the accelerating slide into an appalling civil war in Iraq - are clearly conspiring against him.

The signs of eroding support for Bush's "stay-the-course" strategy are virtually everywhere in Washington, where senior Republicans, such as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner, are moving into open revolt against what they see as a rapidly deteriorating situation and Bush's bullheadedness in still believing that Iraq will somehow become a model for democratic transformation in the Middle East.

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