Plan? What Plan?

I have often heard people commenting that the Democrats aren't taken seriously when they criticize Bush on the war, because they do not have an alternative plan (with the exception of folks like John Murtha). But this brings up an interesting question - do Bush and the Republicans actually have a plan?

Of course, they claim to have a plan - "stay the course, set up a government, train the Iraqi to defend themselves." But really, do we have actual strategy here? Is there a plan for turning Iraq over to the Iraqis? Is there a plan for sending the Iraqi troops to defeat the insurgents? Is there a plan for how tp keep Iraq together? I mean, what exactly do we need to do to get the Iraqis able to defend themselves? When can we reduce the troop presence, to say, 100,000? When we have 300,000 trained Iraqi security forces? When we have had five elections?

You can call each election a "step toward victory," and every death of an insurgent or terrorist leader in Iraq a "victory," but unless there is some measurable, finite goal that we can point to that indicates how close we are to victory, whatever we define that as, such things are no more meaningful than eliminating a wave of aliens in the game "Space Invaders." Each bit of progress is simply a step to the next goal, stretching on ad infinitum.

Not that we are not occasionally told that we can bring back a large number of troops at some point in the future. WE have been told that a few times. But each time, we are told that this is dependent on the situaton on the ground, which never seems to improve to the point that the troop reductions can actually take place.

I guess what I am saying is that I would like to see what the Bush plan actually is, other than treading water, before I get after his critics for not having a plan.

That is all.