To win a battle and lose the war

Foreign Policy has recently published the "Terrorism Index", mapping out American Foreign Policy-makers' views on the war on terror. And the message is quite clear: 84 percent of all participants, across political orientation, disagree with Bush's statement that the war on terror is being won.

57 percent believe that an attack on the US the scale of London or Madrid could take place by the end of 2006, 91 percent believe that it will take place before the end of 2016.

An interesting note is that the public seems to hold more or less the directly opposite views than the experts.