What I intended there was not to accuse you of anything. I still think the question is relevant, because it may be that the political objectives were never real

What I intended there was not to accuse you of anything. I still think the question is relevant, because it may be that the political objectives were never realistic, and thus the effort is Doomed with a capital D, and dogged persistence can only result in perpetual war. It's also possible that, given the political, religious/sectarian, and economic factors at play, the region is likely to "relax into a minimum energy state," so to speak, which is unlikely to be much perturbed by the specifics of withdrawal. There are always better and worse ways to do something. The hazard of holding out for the optimal withdrawal strategy is that it aligns you with disingenuous people who don't really want an end to the thing at all. They will poke holes incessantly in any proposal because either they still think the thing is winnable, or prolonging it advances their personal or institutional interests. I'm still curious to know what precisely is so complicated about US withdrawal in Syria, what the counter-proposal is, and what objective it's supposed to achieve. This thread is going to get depth-limited at some point though, so I may not find out.