Wolfotwits...

As for:
...a POLITICAL military strategy to help the Iraqis do what is in their own interest...
Uh, which subset of Iraqis? Not a snark, a serious question. And is that what they think is in their own best interest or what we think?
My point was that until the new president takes office this adminsitration will be responsible and afterwards the new one. In any case, I don't see President Bush, McCain, Clinton, or Obama pointing his/her finger at someone and saying you're my guy and everybody else works for you.
'fraid not. Not the American way.
...Hope I'm wrong but as GEN Gordon Sullivan said, "hope is not a method."
Gordy was right but that, regrettably, does not change the fact that IS the American way. Again, no snark, serious point. As you said above in your starting post:
"...My only caveat is that while strategy is conceptually easy, doing it well is hard. And executing it is harder still. Today, everybody and his dog is a strategist. But, in government, only the military does it well - and not all the time."
All too true -- and while we do it more and better if not perfectly, we end up doing a lot that is outside our purview. Which, if it falls apart, lets the hammer fall on not necessarily the right person.

Be that as it may, the point is that strategy IS hard -- and it becomes devilishly hard when you have to do it in conjunction with another government whose goals differ radically from yours (or with people in your own government to whom that comment also applies). Even harder when you have few folks who really understand the host country culture and those that do tend to fall into various and differing ideologically based schools of thought on what needs to happen.

Really superior strategists have floundered on those rocks for a great many years. Regardless of who was in charge...