Campaign promises are just that, campaign promises. What looks good on paper does not always match reality. Pulling out of Iraq requires the cooperation of the enemy.
If you have been watching the news and the spin put on it, you will note there have been a lot more attacks with bombs and whatever over the past 6 or so weeks. The spin says it is the work of Al Qaida and whoever. A quick dot here is the situation is not as good as they thought and hoped it would be. So by putting heavy spin on the news, they are simply trying to portray that political policy is working. The reality is there are more bees near the nest that away from the nest.
Iraq and the surrounding countries are the places terrorists come from. Terrorist do not care much about rules and diplomacy. They will do anything to get what they want. So if playing dead for a while will serve their goals, that is what they will do and obviously did.
Connecting the Dots talked about this way back when then presidential candidate Barack Obama said he would pull troops out of Iraq. Although there is political motivation on both sides to get Americans out of Iraq, the reality of it is the Iraqi military has a long way to go, and pulling out now may be equal to putting a 10 year old behind the wheel of a car.
However Connecting the Dots can not fault the efforts to make the pullout happen, in fact it is very admirable. But when it comes to reality things do not always go as planned, and the US must take responsibility for fathering this war as is expected of any parent. To leave before it can tend to itself is both irresponsible and perhaps even immoral.
The bottom line here is what is wanted does not always match what can be provided. The enemy must be under 100% control of the Iraqi military before that last US military boot leaves Iraq soil. Connecting the Dots tends to feel that dates for pullout are at best a dream to satisfy the American public outcry. How much longer truly depends on how fast the Iraqi military can get up to speed. Any significant attack that takes out key people in the Iraqi military will simply push that date out further.
