"It's over in Iraq. It's finished." According to veteran correspondent for the UK's The Independent Robert Fisk, we've all but lost the war:

Ultimately, I think what we are going to see, as we have seen in all Middle East wars of occupation, is the opening of some kind of contact between the Americans and the insurgents. This is what the French did after years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, they talked to the FLN. After years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, the British talked to the IRA. After years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, the British talked to the militants fighting them in Aden and to EOKA in Cyprus, and indeed, to both militant sides in Palestine that they tried to escape from what Churchill called a hell disaster in 1948.

The Americans will soon, if they have not already, establish contact with the insurgents, and that will mean the beginning of end. It means that the project is over. That they have accepted, as I think, you know, they have already in terms of soldiers on the ground. If you are going to talk to the colonels, and they may -- the majors and the generals in Iraq, they know that the game is up. But the generals back at the Pentagon and the Centcom and down there in old Florida and the gentleman in the State Department and at the White House, they don't accept this because this is a screen of self-delusion between them and the reality on the ground. But it's over in Iraq. It's finished.

What we're going to see this year is the beginning of the endgame, which is how do we get Americans out without losing face and ultimately - I should say faith as well - and ultimately, how do you start negotiation with the insurgents. I mean, that doesn't mean that some American colonel is going to sit down with Zarqawi, though I wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility. It means that we're going to have in effect an understanding between the insurgents and the United States forces that the project has failed, that at some point the powers behind the insurgency or the resistance or the terrorists or whatever you would like to call them, will move into place to control the country and they probably will. In the meantime, I fear the Western powers will go on trying to promote the idea of civil war as an alternative to their occupation and oppression and I hope very much that that won't work. As I said to you before, Iraq has never had a civil war. Iraqis don't want a civil war. The only people who fear or talk about civil war are the Americans and British.

Read the full interview.