Hi RA,

This is why I asked about the objective when I first joined this prestigious group. According to RTK:

In short, it's to win.

As per National Strategy for Victory in Iraq published November 2005. This has not changed.

Victory in Iraq is Defined in Stages
• Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces.

The tactical COIN progress we're making isn't moving us toward the strategic objective. That's obviously a problem. Especially since the tactics are costing us so much in dollars and blood. Probably the best we can hope for is that AQI can't operate in Iraq. Changing the objective to, "Remove al Qaeda from Iraq" would enable us to win much quicker and cheaper than under the current objectives. Plus domestically, the majority of the population would support it.
I think in this case, tactical success is being translated into operational success and is establishing the conditions for strategic success - but I don't think it is necessarily manifesting itself in the ways we (the big broad "we") are looking for it. We want to see political reconciliation writ large, but that is going to take a long time and its going to require a long period of relative security and stability to occur - we're talking integration to achieve a pluralistic values based society in somewhere we are only now beginning to achieve relative security - how long does it take to effect social change under the best of conditions?

I guess the next big question is if its worth it. That is the source of great debate - what are the primary and extended consequences of changing the objectives (or not changing the objectives). While I appreciate RTK's concise definition, I think it deserves to be placed in the context of preserving our vital interests, and in a lesser sense those of the larger environment we have to live in. Its complicated, of course if it were not we'd have figured it out by now

Best Regards, Rob