Thomas Ricks thinks that the Iraq war is far from over. "This year we're in now, '09, is going to be, I think, a surprisingly tough year," Ricks told NBC's David Gregory.

Ricks believes that the Bush administration's surge strategy kicked the can down the road. "Basically the surge succeeded militarily, failed politically," he said. General Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, sees negative effects of the surge. "What he says is that Iraqis, many of them, used the breathing space we created to step backwards to become more sectarian, become more divided," explained Ricks.

Thomas Ricks is author of the new book, "The Gamble."