Earlier, Al-Maliki was told that he would have a two-hour video-conference on Iraq with President Bush at his holiday home at leafy Camp David.

The venue of the meeting was confined to the Green Zone, the highly protected area and it is hardly the place to witness the "real" Baghdad because it has been cocooned from the rest of the city. These two features, among others, dominate his visit similar to the one he did it in 2003.

What does the secret visit show?
It means that even the Prime Minister of Iraq cannot be taken into confidence about his visit as the US suspects that the Prime Minister's office is being infiltrated by elements of sympathisers of insurgents, although Bush denied that the Prime Minister was not informed because of concern about al-Maliki's inner circle. The President reportedly stated that "I am a high-value target for some. I think if there was ample notification that I was coming, perhaps it would have given somebody a chance to plan, and we just did not want to take that risk."

It manifests that Iraq is not only deeply unquiet, with widespread sectarian violence but also the sectarian conflict may draw other countries in the Middle East in the conflict as Iraq is sandwiched between Sunni and Shi'ia- majority nations. The Saudi Foreign Minister in October, 2005 reportedly said about the Iraqi situation "No dynamic is pulling the nation together -- all are pulling the country apart."

It shows that Arab people watch with amazement that the greatest superpower battles to achieve even the level of power and oil production that a sanction-shackled Saddam Hussein managed in the months before the invasion in March 2003.

It illustrates that Bush did not get one of the paradoxes of American power as articulated by Professor Joseph Nye -- that the US is too great to be challenged by another state in the world, but not great enough to act alone in solving problems, such as global terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

It demonstrates that the conflict in Iraq has revealed not so much the extent of the US power, as its limit. Even the President Bush, "the liberator of Iraqi people" has to visit secretly the country and has to be confined to the protective zone.

What is the purpose of such secret visit?
There are several reasons for the visit and some of them deserve mention in the following paragraphs:

First, the popularity of the President in the US has reportedly fallen to mere 31 per cent, lowest among the incumbents. The decline has threatened his party Republican's fate in the coming November Congress elections. Most Republican leaders are deeply worried that many of them may not be elected and the cause is Iraq. They perceive Iraq adventure, like albatross hanging on the President's neck.

The President has to do something to boost the morale of his party. The visit would manifest that optimistic future lies ahead in Iraq. That means that a wind of change is being heralded in the country after the killing of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Second, there is a perception in Iraq and outside that the al-Maliki's government is dominated by the pro-Iranian elite. Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim, one of the strongest behind-the-scenes players, heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, is decidedly pro-Iranian, having fought on the side of Iran during Iran-Iraq war in the 80s. The Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki is an important member of the Dawa Party, which was based in Iran. He was one of the architects of the Iraqi Constitution which gave a raw deal to the Sunnis in Iraq. The government does not represent secular platform in the country. The President's visit is to help boost the frail new government of Iraq and provide a positive image of the government.

Third, al-Maliki's government in Iraq does not mean anything for common people in Iraq. All his tall talks changed nothing. Moreover insurgency remains as before, if not accelerated after the formation of the government. De-bathification of policies, combined with aggressive military actions against innocent Iraqi people and in particular against Sunni tribes have exacerbated the situation. The visit would show that the US is totally behind the government and the US forces would remain as long they are necessary, even after the exit of President Bush in 2009.

Finally, the visit is to retrieve President's popularity in the US. Some say the visit is also to draw a viable exit strategy of US forces from Iraq in consultation with al-Maliki's government. All along the exit strategy consists of policies of involvement of Sunnis in the government, strengthen the hands of Iraqi security forces and keep the Shi'ia elite outside the influence of Iran. It seems that as a token, a gradual withdrawal of US forces may commence before the Congress elections in November.

On arrival in Washington, the President rejected calls for pullout from Iraq and refused to give a time-table or bench mark for success that would allow troops to come back home. He did not offer any specific targets to measure when Iraqis will be able to govern themselves. Instead he declared that the government must be able to succeed.

Conclusion
Despite the day-time curfew, implemented by 65,000 Iraqi security forces by the new Iraqi government, insurgents had been able to continue violence and on 16th June, 11 were killed and 25 injured when a suicide bomber hit Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad. One Turkish crew member of TV was also kidnapped from the scene.

Twenty-five years ago, the Americans took great pleasure in giving Moscow its very own "Vietnam War" in Afghanistan. But what the US-funded war in Afghanistan in the 80s actually did was to convince Afghanis and Arab mujahideens including Osama Bin Laden that they could defeat a superpower. Now the Iraqi insurgents, call them mad, believe that they can do it again and this time they have Washington in their sights -- not Moscow.

It appears that President Bush now realises what a mess he created in Iraq. Increasingly this is looking like a failed Presidency. An eminent British historian late Trevor-Roper of Oxford University once said that "the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn". How apt his dictum is in the case of US misadventure in Iraq.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.