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In an opinion piece published by the New York Post in September, I drew public attention to Senator Barack Obama's attempt to interfere with negotiations between Iraq and the United States regarding the presence of American troops and future defence co-operation between the two countries. I argued that by trying to undercut the incumbent president, Obama had broken a golden rule of American politics and manifested either his naïveté in matters of diplomacy or, worse still, a remarkable degree of cynicism.

At first, the Obama camp tried to ignore the whole matter. However, when it became clear that the issue was attracting massive public interest, it reacted in three ways.

Pirates conjure up images of hook hands, peg legs and eye-patches. The modern species is much less comforting, flourishing in failed states and confronting the crews of huge tankers and bulk carriers with a new and dangerous occupational peril. I once had an incredulous response from a young American radio journalist after remarking that international terrorism should be combated with the same concerted rigour that was once brought to bear on pirates. Being of limited contemporary cultural range, he immediately thought of Johnny Depp hamming it up in the 18^th-century Caribbean as reconceived by Hollywood. But in the words of Captain Pottengal Mukundan, the head of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), these are more like "maritime muggers" armed with AK-47s, than a cutlass-wielding Captain Blood.