I think it's a healthy development that there's far less talk on schedules for withdrawal. You can't schedule that kind of stuff, purely meant for votes. At the moment there seems to be rather less combat; it gets interesting when the conditions are created to actually improve the daily lives of Iraqi (infrastructure, stable, government, economy,...), which is more where I'd place criteria for success. It'd be interesting to know what those plans are, but I guess it's risky to raise false hopes. Guess the standard mod phrase 'When It's Done' applies here too.