John McCain, formerly the leading Republican presidential contender, has told The Sunday Telegraph that restoring America's sullied reputation abroad will be "a top priority" if he wins the White House. The Arizona senator, an Iraq war hawk, was talking aboard the revived Straight Talk Express - the vehicle that made his name during the 2000 presidential election and that he hopes will revive his faltering fortunes this time round.

'Whisper of how I'm yearning", sang George M Cohan in one of the great American songs of nostalgia, "to mingle with the old time throng". Well, I'm yearning too, not for the gang at 42nd Street exactly, but for the America that Cohan was indirectly hymning - for the Idea of America, with a capital I, which once made the United States not just the most potent of all the nations but genuinely the most liked. Perhaps, with a future new president already champing at the bit, we are about to witness its rebirth. As a foreigner I am immune to the rivalries or seductions of American party politics, but I have loved the old place for 60 years, and I simply pray for an American leader to give us back its baraka, as the Arabs say - nothing to do with religion or economics or power or even ideology, but the gift of being at once blessed and blessing.