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Granted, we need realistic goals. Set them, measure progress, respond, repeat. In the deepest recess of war planning schedules are part of the game, but they're fluid. What I don't like is a public schedule becoming the tail that wags the dog. The fluidity becomes another horse race of failures for anyone with a microphone. Then media stokes the public which fuels useless knee-jerking fires.
Feels like we're all the children asking the parents "are we there yet?"
I agree we haven't seen a well-defined set of goals beyond "deposing then democracy". This was "a difficult" war without definitions against an enemy who's happy to bob & weave where we aren't. Not a great formula for success.
I, like most of us I think, would like to see the coordination between US and Iraqi actions gradually improve to a point it's safe to turn things over entirely. As quickly as possible, but without damaging the process. We can't expect perfection, and we can't expect a mirror of ourselves, but we need to give them the best chance to decide their own fate without the pointless chaos of cutting & running. While I'd love to be privy to timelines & tactics, making them public would be conceding a roadmap to our failure to the enemy. So we have to trust the generals to some extent, which isn't made easier by the ups & downs.
It isn't pleasant, this stuff.
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195
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