It is now clear that America’s decision to invade Iraq was a grave mistake. The US is searching for a way out of the war and a presidential election is in the offing. Under the circumstances, one might expect a passionate and informed debate to be taking place about America’s role in the world.

In fact, the foreign policy argument in the US is rather disappointing. It sometimes looks as if Americans are so shell-shocked by the debacle of Iraq that they are unable to think clearly or boldly. The presidential election campaign seems actually to be inhibiting debate, as candidates cautiously manoeuvre for position – and seek to avoid making politically costly errors.

The complete review for the three books below can be read here and comments can be made below.

The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing
By Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke

Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy against Global Terror
By Ian Shapiro

Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World
By Philip Gordon

The last couple of days in New York have provided a chance to compare the styles of two presidents and a nearly-president. On Tuesday George W Bush spoke to the UN. On Wednesday, a few blocks from the UN, Bill Clinton opened his 2007 Clinton Global Initiative. And - in the opening session - he shared a platform with Al Gore. Rather to my surprise, I thought the famously wooden Gore gave the most impressive and charismatic performance of the three men - aided by the fact that the opening session of the CGI focused heavily on his special subject: climate change.

Relations betweeen the Gore and Clinton camps have been tense since 2000 when, in the aftermath of the Lewinsky scandal, Gore’s presidential campaign deliberately tried to put some distance between him and Clinton. But in the opening CGI session, the two men seemed to get on fine. In fact, I rather longed for Gore to disrupt the sugary sweetness of the occasion by making a shock announcement that he will run for the presidency against Hillary. That would have put Bill on the spot.

Clinton’s presentation was a reminder of his formidable ability to combine personal charm, with a nerdy command of policy detail and relentless optimism. He still favours argument by anecdote. Clinton’s favourite rhetorical technique is to outline some huge policy problem, and then point to a local example - preferably combined with an uplifting personal story - that points the way forward and shows that all problems are soluble. In the opening panel, Clinton used Lee Scott - the boss of Walmart, who was also on the platform - as a sort of prop.

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Tuesday was the big day at the UN General Assembly. Global leaders rushed to the podium, one after the other. We had the heads of government of South Africa, Indonesia, Germany and many others. But it was clear who the big three were - Bush, Sarkozy and Ahmadinejad. Bush because of his job, Sarko because he is still a novelty - and ADJ because he says outrageous things and is at the centre of a gathering international crisis.

It was fascinating to sit through an entire Ahmadinejad speech and press conference for the first time. I thought he pulled off the difficult trick of being simultaneously boring and sinister. Boring because he goes on and on about religion. I don’t know why this surprised me - it is the Islamic Republic of Iran, after all. But the religious rhetoric is usually wisely edited out of the compressed version of his remarks. Having to listen to it all in full, is a bit like being trapped on the doorstep by a Jehovah’s Witness. On the other hand, I also found his performance sinister because it is clear that he is genuinely obsessed by Israel. These are not stray remarks, forced out of him. He can’t keep off the subject.

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This is the big week at the UN General Assembly. But it’s already clear who the star of the show will be - Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the president of Iran. Ahmadi-Nejad is often portrayed as a dangerous simpleton. But he has played the PR game with masterful precision, since his arrival in New York.

Today (it’s still Monday night in New York), he limbered up for his appearance at the UN General Assembly by talking to an audience at Columbia University, in upper Manhattan. He was greeted with screaming headlines. The New York Daily News splash was "The Evil Has Landed" - with a sub-title -"Hate spewing Iran prez speaks today at Columbia.". For good measure, the paper ran an editorial accusing Columbia of "Monstrous Idiocy". Perhaps intimidated by all this pre-publicity, Columbia’s president - Lee Bollinger, (a champagne socialist?) - spoke for 10 minutes before the Iranian president and accused him of being a "petty and cruel dictator." This played into Ahmadi-Nejad’s hands. He mildly rebuked his host for being discourteous - and smilingly dodged all difficult questions about Israel or the Holocaust. The only moment when he appeared genuinely ridiculous was when he denied the existence of homosexuality in Iran.

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Earlier this year I got an e-mail from a reader accusing me of combining the “worst qualities” of Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain. My offence had been to write a column suggesting that it would be a bad idea to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. This, apparently, meant that I was in favour of the annihilation of Israel (hence Hitler) – and also that I was a pathetic coward (Chamberlain).

This kind of rhetoric is not unusual. As I write, Columbia University in New York is being accused on television of “hosting Hitler”, because it has invited President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran to speak on campus.

Personally, I found being compared to Chamberlain particularly offensive. There are few more damaging taunts than to be compared to the British prime minister who tried and failed to appease Hitler at the Munich summit of 1938. In the US, in particular, the ghost of Chamberlain is regularly brought out to frighten those who are deemed insufficiently resolute in confronting the enemy of the moment. In the run-up to the Iraq war, the lessons of Munich were invoked by President George W. Bush and any number of neo-conservative commentators.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican, was at it again during this month’s congressional hearings on Iraq. She reminded her audience that: “Neville Chamberlain genuinely believed that he had brought ‘peace in our time’ by washing his hands of what he believed to be an isolated dispute in ‘a far away country between people of whom we know nothing’. That country was Czechoslovakia and Chamberlain’s well-intentioned efforts … only ensured that an immensely larger threat was thereby unleashed.” The lesson was clear. Confront evil regimes as soon as possible.

The remainder of this week’s column can be read here (FT.com subscribers only). Comments can be made below.

I usually think that one of the more charming British characteristics is the national tendency to self-deprecation and under-statement. Let the Americans preen about "sole superpowers"; let the French natter about "l’exception Francaise" - the British just get on with it. But there is an important qualification to this rule. Every now and then the British fall prey to a bout of national self-congratulation. When that happens - take cover. It is usually a sign of impending catastrophe.

There are three recent examples of bouts of national hubris - followed by a swift come-uppance. First - and most immediately - there was the self-congratulation about how well we were handling the global financial crisis. Second, there was the pride over how much better the British army was at policing Iraq than the Americans. Finally, there was the period when it was conventional wisdom that the British model of integration was infinitely superior to that of the French.

Take the financial crisis first. Only last week, the spin coming out of the Bank of England was that the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve had over-reacted. The bank, with its centuries of experience, understood the risks of "moral hazard". A week later - and the ECB and the Fed are looking comparatively good. It is Britain that has had the bank run and the embarrassing policy reversals.

It is all curiously reminiscent of Britain’s bout of self-congratulation, just after the occupation of Iraq.

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The appointment of Bernard Kouchner as French foreign minister was both brilliant and bizarre. It was brilliant because in bringing Kouchner on board, President Sarkozy managed to co-opt one of the stars of the Socialist Party and one of the most popular men in France. Kouchner is revered because he founded Medecins Sans Frontieres. And also – perhaps – because he is articulate, good-looking and married to a TV star.

But choosing Kouchner was also a bit bizarre because he was one of the few high-profile French public figures to have supported the invasion of Iraq - albeit slightly equivocally and on humanitarian grounds. Given that France led the opposition to the Iraq war and - as Sarkozy himself has pointed out - was vindicated by subsequent events, appointing somebody who made the wrong call seemed odd.

But the experience of Iraq does not seem to have chastened Kouchner. This week he has made the headlines, by saying of Iran - "We have to prepare for the worst and the worst is war." This goes beyond even what George W. Bush has said. His preferred formula is that – “All options are on the table”.

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‘‘My fellow Americans, our troops in Iraq have performed heroically and have done everything that has been asked of them. Under my presidency I will seek to bring our brave men and women home. But there will be no precipitate withdrawal from Iraq. We will secure our vital national interests.

“Our nation faces awesome challenges in Iraq and in the struggle against global jihadism. But I take inspiration from the ‘greatest generation’, which won the second world war, and from the statesmen who led us to victory in the cold war – men like George C. Marshall and Harry Truman.

The remainder of this week’s column can be read here (FT.com subscribers only). Comments can be made below.

I thought President Bush did a good job in his television address on Iraq last night (view video, transcript). He must have done. For a couple of minutes, I was almost convinced.

As expected, Bush made the case that the “surge” has worked. His speech was full of encouraging little anecdotes. He set out the moral and strategic case for persevering in Iraq with conviction. And he tried to build some sort of bipartisan consensus, by holding out the hope that the troop withdrawals he announced are just the beginning.

But – in the end – it doesn’t convince for two main reasons.

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I was sorry to read today that Joseph "Erap" Estrada, the former president of the Phillippines, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption. I have a soft spot for Erap. He is the only politician I have ever interviewed who actually fell asleep during the interview.

It was in the mid-1990s and Estrada was vice-president at the time. He was also enormously popular with the poor in the Phillippines - largely because he had played a series of heroic roles in low-budget thrillers. He was clearly the coming man, so getting an interview with him was quite a big deal. He had a large office, full of note-taking flunkies. They were as horrified as I was, when the great man nodded off and began to snore during the course of our interview. But I can’t really blame him. It was hot; I was asking a lot of damn fool questions about development and foreign policy. He might have had a few at lunch. He has a reputation as a world-class drinker and womaniser. Eventually I was ushered to the door by a staff member who said:  "I’m sorry about that, but I could tell the vice-president was very interested by your questions until he fell asleep."

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