what part of "general time horizon" don't they understand?

Well, for starters, they don't seem to understand that referring to it as a "horizon" stipulates that we're talking about something which recedes as you approach it.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq wants to eliminate any chance U.S. forces will stay here after 2011 under a proposed security pact and to expand Iraqi legal jurisdiction over U.S. troops until then, a close ally of the prime minister said Thursday.

Did you catch that? "Horizon," my friends...

I don't think anyone anticipated a long-term military presence with complete impunity and lots of s#i+ blowing up...

U.S. Military Hoped for Virtually Unlimited Freedom of Action in Iraq
Drafting of U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement Began Nearly Five Years Ago

Washington D.C., June 13, 2008 - Recently declassified documents show that the U.S. military has long sought an agreement with Baghdad that gives American forces virtually unfettered freedom of action, casting into doubt the Bush administration's current claims that their demands are more limited in scope. News reports have indicated that the Bush administration is exerting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to accept a U.S.-Iraq security plan by the end of July 2008. According to these accounts, the plan would give the U.S. more than 50 military bases in Iraq, provide complete freedom of action to conduct military operations, allow complete freedom to arrest and detain Iraqis, and grant U.S. forces and contractors total immunity from Iraqi law. Growing awareness of the implications of the pact have fueled opposition by the Iraqi public – to the extent that Prime Minister al-Maliki announced today that discussions had deadlocked.

where's the gratitude?

Maliki raises possibility that Iraq might ask U.S. to leave

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki raised the possibility that his country won't sign a status of forces agreement with the United States and will ask U.S. troops to go home when their U.N. mandate to be in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

that Nuri -- what a kidder!

AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Friday talks with the United States on a long-term security pact were at a stalemate because of U.S. demands that encroached on Iraq's sovereignty.