The beginning of the end?

As the wheels start to come off the Iraq war adventure and mounting advice is to cut and run from a quagmire is it time to start asking what those 655 000 Iraqi lives were extinguished for?

Blair and Bush isolated over Iraq's direction
United States President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were looking more isolated than ever as the ground shifted further under their strategy of remaining in Iraq "until the job is done".

The President and the Prime Minister were left clinging to the dream of establishing a lasting democracy in Iraq as their advisers urged them to look for a more realistic exit strategy.

The calls came as roadside bombs and enemy fire killed eight soldiers and one Marine in and around Baghdad yesterday, raising to 67 the number of US troops killed in October and American military losses to nearly 2800.

A leaked report by the Iraq Study Group, chaired by former US Secretary of State James Baker, a close friend of the Bush family, paved the way for a large-scale withdrawal of US forces and a dramatic shift of US policy. It suggested that instead of the "stay the course" policy, Bush could extricate the US from Iraq by removing US forces to bases outside Iraq.

In an even more spectacular u-turn, the advisers are believed to suggest that Iran and Syria could be invited to co-operate in the stabilisation of lawless Iraq. That was implicitly rejected by White House spokesman Tony Snow, who said the Administration would not "subcontract" management of the war to outside advisers.

But Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told the BBC that violence in Iraq could end "within months" if Iran and Syria joined efforts to stabilise the country, and two high-profile Republican senators separately called for a change of course.

Last week, Blair was urged to scale down his ambitions for Iraq by by the chief of Britain's armed forces, General Sir Richard Dannatt, who also said the presence of British troops was exacerbating the security situation.

On Tuesday, the Home Secretary, John Reid also broke ranks by saying at a private meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party that foreign policy was contributing to the radicalisation of young Muslims in Britain.