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I think it's perfectly realistic to accept that Iraq made us a target for the jihadi cult leaders, but that's something every Briton knew when we got involved in the war on terror.

Making sacrifices has never notably been a problem for the average Briton in wartime. During the IRA campaigns all the average member of the public wanted to know was that our leaders and security people were competent and effective, which they generally were. You can ask the widows of a large number of IRA terrorist operators how effective they can be.

The big problem arises if we all start to doubt Tony Blair's judgement over getting the UK involved in Iraq. It would help an awful lot to maintain confidence in his judgement if the situation in Iraq looked like it was being effectively resolved. Right now it looks to me and to most Britons like a shambles. A relative is a WO1 with 20-odd years service. If he tells me that it's a shambles, I have confidence in his military judgement. His guys are doing OK in the shiia south, but he thinks that the sunni triangle is a disaster.

Our consensus over a few bottles at new year was that the only winners given the present situation are Iran and AQ.

In every war, our history shows that we don't mind standing our ground. Pretty much all of our greatest victories resulted from our infantry, a bunch of plowboys and town scruff, hitching up their belt, staring death in the face and being willing to stand their ground just that little bit longer than the infantry of any other nation.

At Waterloo, the First Foot Guards (my father's regiment) springing up from behind the ridge-line as though Wellington had planted dragon's teeth before uttering his famous words, "Stand up Guards! now Maitland, now's your time!"

They were the rock on which Napoleon's Old Guard broke and when they ran, the rest of his huge army (200,000 vs 50,000) also broke and ran.

That bone-deep stubborness in the face of any and all enemies, obviously got quite a lot of them uselessly slaughtered when they were led by idiots, as in the US war of Independence, the first Afghan war, the Crimea, Boer, first and a few shameful episodes in the second world war.

I'm thinking of such brainwaves as: the Charge of the Light Brigade, Spion Kop, Gallipoli, the fall of Singapore and Montgomery's vainglorious disaster, operation Market Garden.

History also shows that we do want to know that our leaders are competent. We've had our share of military nincompoops. Our shamefully useless generals Elphinstone, Buller, Raglan et al, show us that denial is very bad sign in a wartime leader. Our best warriors: Slim, Hoare, Mayne, Allenby, Wingate, Lawrence, Fisher, Hope Grant, Campbell, Brooke, Wellington, Nelson, Cochrane, Broke, Seymour, Riou, Marlbourgh, Cromwell, Grenville, Drake and our greatest war leaders like William I & III, Edward I, III & IV, Henry I, IV & V, Elizabeth I and Churchill were cynical, flexible, ruthlessly pragmatic and extremely realistic.

Those are the standards by which we judge our war leaders.

It bothers me that he's so vehment in denying that there is any causal connection, even though its a secondary cause in the sense we were discussing above. It's one of many things that might radicalise a muslim kid, but it's the brainwashing by hardened terrorist 'cult leaders' that's the indispensable factor in making hothead kids into bombers.