We are on our way out, and we will be gone after a decent interval. It will take a a little longer than I would have liked, but he probably has his reasons.

The original goals of the war, both declared and actual, were never met. But they weren't his goals, they were Cheney/Rumsfeld's and they were never met by his predecessor either.

You see, after the WMD story unravelled, the reasons for going to Iraq in the first place became pretty clear: To intimidate and divide the Arab world by putting an American puppet state and American bases in the middle of it, to put an American military presence on both sides of Iran, and to remove the oil threat to America by securing a guaranteed source to it. Saddam was a bully and thug hated by his people and his neighbors, and his economy and military were in shambles, so it seemed like a pushover.

That's classic geopolitical maneuvering and power politics, but as I've pointed out before, invading other countries without beaucoup international support or a direct military threat, just for strategic and economic reasons, is naked aggression pure and simple, and I'm ashamed my country engaged in it. We have not been that brutally imperealistic since we invaded Mexico in the 1840s. We won that one, by the way.

Did anything about the war turn out differently than I expected after I changed my mind and began rejecting the Bush policy? Yeah. The Surge worked. But by that time it was too late. We are now victorious aggressors, not helplessly bogged down and humiliated aggressors. Mission Accomplished.