There is no plan for success. There is no way to unite the various warring factions, with the use of military force. Bush fucked up the Iraq situation, and there is no way he will be able to un-fuck it. Bush is stalling for time, so he can get out of office and hand the mess off to the next president.
In September, Petraeus will say “The plan hasn’t had a chance to work. We need to stay the course”.
Or he’ll say “The plan shows signs of success. We need to stay the course”.
Either way, the plan is to stay the course, purely for political reasons on Bush’s behalf. This way, Bush will be able to pretend that somebody else lost the war, not him. “I would have won the game, I just ran out of innings!”
The American people do not have the will to spend another 10 years occupying Iraq with major combat forces. We’ve already spent 450 billion tax dollars so far. That is completely unsustainable financially and militarily.
Also, Bush has treated the Democrats as a nuisance that he can ignore, or villify when elections are close by. You cannot effectively wage a long term war effort with support from only one political party. That is not a recipe for success.
None of the plans for “success” explain how Iraqi factions will come together and live side by side. Nobody can explain how that will work. Peace among Iraqis isn’t going to be accomplished with a military-only solution. But Bush doesn’t have the international credibility or the political chops to put together a diplomatic component.
Nothing will change in Iraq until Bush is gone, and since there is no possible clear-cut victory while he’s in office, that’s what Bush wants… more of the same. He cares the most about his legacy, not as much about how many troops will be killed or maimed, or how much higher the deficit will go, while he runs out the clock.