Thanks for your post. Yes, I agree, President Bush has been much to vague and I really think that no one truly understood the nature of the mind set over there - the cultural memes. Freedom resonates with the Kurds and some of the Sunnis - not much with the Shia. It would have been better to respect the reality of where the Iraqis were in terms beliefs and attitudes instead of assuming that they wanted what we want.
I like what Jonah Goldberg suggested: make the Iraqis vote: do they want us to stay or to leave? If they vote that they want us out - we can set a date and request certain criteria be met by that date. If they vote that they want us to stay - that would help with the American people and we could then let the Iraqis know what we expect.
There is so much corruption over there that needs to be addressed. The Iraqis should be making billions in oil revenue - and having some money and some job prospects would make a lot of difference. People want meaningful work.
One thing that is helpful is that the Iraqis do love their children and care about their families [unlike the Palestinians]. That is something that we can work with - helping people to help themselves in terms of prosperity and meaningful work.
GW says that he has military, politcal and economic objectives that have to be met before we leave. As you say, they need to be clearly communicated [as best as GW can articulate :-) ] Tony Snow could help a lot.
And I think we have to be realistic. The Sunnis and the Shia hate each other. The Brits were so wrong to draw up the country of Iraq in the first place. The Kurds can do well on their own and we need to be honorable in making sure they are protected. If we can figure out what to do with Baghdad - having loosely autonomous states within a federal system in which each state is safe and protected makes quite a bit of sense.
When we leave - we need to leave a place that is not going to be a breeding ground for terrorists and is better than what was there when we invaded. We don't need to set our goals unrealistically high.
This advice was given to Bush I. It was also given to Bush II. The Prevailing theory was that we needed a unified and strong Iraq to counterbalance Iran.