GEORGE W BUSH Snr berates Iran for newk-ya-lah ambitions. George Bush enunciated the Saddam in Hussein like he’d just lipped too much salt with his margarita. Richard Nixon pronounced Viet-Nahm like a tropical wasting disease, rhymed with harm.

Three decades after the fall of Saigon, for some the background chatter of helicopters and a Phantom jet’s jungle wake of spidery tendrils of white phosphorus, and napalm plumes in day-glo orange remains. Martin Sheen’s murmured, ‘Saigon, Saigon, I was still in Saigon …’ may haunt the odd scabby hotel room, but it’s Ho Chi Minh City now, and the only boom is an economic one. Having won the war, the Vietnamese are winning the peace: Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are growling free-market tiger cubs, a business thriving on every corner.