Japan had noticeable & perceivable progress.
Warren wants to know what the goal is and how to tell if we are achieving that goal.
So why did we continue to have bases and troops in Japan, long after Japan had stabilized and progressed? What sense does it make to be projecting force when and where its not needed, but condemn it when it is needed in a region? Right now (and for much of the time before 2003), we were spending more money on troops in Japan than we were in Iraq and Syria. Can you explain that? We have ~10 times the troops in Japan as we have in Iraq. But we need out of Iraq ASAP, right? Japan has often taken issue with our military being there too, yet I don't hear people bitching and moaning about that for some reason.
And that's fine and I agree with that (that our government should provide clear goals and plans for achieving it). The goal is to work towards stability for that region. Things were progressing that direction (obviously there were plenty of issues, including many related directly to our government's policy/actions), but there has been progress in the Middle East. There might still be plenty of problems, and yes there's been major setbacks, but there has been progress made there. I don't know if people really don't know much of the history of that region, or what is fueling this "Middle East is a lost cause, nothing will ever work". Its like people think everything should be fixed within a couple of years and never have problems after that. Now, if you want to discuss specific things, absolutely, but by and large its just people going "we need to get out and stay out and not go back" which is...again I do'nt know if its ignorance or why people think that will make things any better. Again, I'm not disputing that we've fucked up monumentally, but we were finally starting to kinda learn from our mistakes and we were taking measured approach, and it wasn't perfect but it was working. The goal of such is to prevent situations like Syria from happening in the future.
The thing is, we fucked up massively by rolling into Iraq under Bush Jr. No one disputes that (other than raging shitheads). But us leaving won't improve things (and I believe, and believe its supported with historical evidence, that us leaving will lead to the situation deteriorating again to the point that we must act or deal with severe consequences that will directly impact us - basically situation where we're going to be affected if we do something or not, and if we do something - just in a reasoned manner it can be a better outcome; just because the outcome is still shitty doesn't mean its not better than what likely was going to happen if we did nothing; I think Syria was such a situation).
And before the stupid "liberals are pro-war?" type of responses, I'm not. But we made a shitty situation, and we should help remedy it, as well as work for long term stability because it has an affect on us. I don't think Obama did enough about Syria soon enough. And it bit us by ISIS' extremism making it outside of that region. I think he did that because he feels like a lot of you do that we should be out of those places. I used to agree, but I don't any longer, at least on such a timetable. It was premature for us to reduce to that level so quickly. I laud him for showing restraint and trying to find a diplomatic solution, but I think that was also a bit of a screwup in that we should've acted sooner, and we should've been very cautious about Russia's involvement (which we were but we let them roll in and fortify Assad). Both of those came later though, and I think it was because he listened to the people that know their shit with regards to that region that explained things to him and overcame his intransigence to getting involved (which is a marked improvement to how our government was handling that region, especially compared to Bush Jr's administration that literally forced the intelligence community to fabricate evidence to support their bullshit; let alone Turmp's refusal to even know fucking anything about the situation until they basically sit him down and go "do we respond with an attack or not", and then the bumbling shithead enacts policy after getting frustrated messaging some diplomat from Turkey, its fucking stupid).
I certainly wish we'd been smart enough to not go rolling into Iraq like we did (I vividly remember one of my high school teachers being "ra-ra" about the Iraq invasion, and I just shook my head knowing it was going to be a fucking mess, but he's the type of shithead that would've called me a traitor or some other bullshit for not unquestionably supporting it). But we did, so we just have to accept that. Us leaving is not the best solution, even speaking strictly for us, but certainly for peace for that region it isn't. At absolute minimum, I don't think anyone can support the manner in which this is happening either. Its not just because I despise Turmp, well not in the sense that people try to say. I despise Turmp because he's a horrible person prone to making horrible decisions that I can see will have negative consequences. This is a horrible decision and will have negative consequences, even ignoring all other and looking just at America, I think it will have negative consequences.