Decapitating a double-headed insurgency in Iraq is the easy part. It's what comes next – the political process – that's hard, current and former military officers are saying.

"With less than three months before the American-led occupation force hands sovereignty to an Iraqi civilian government, the process for a political transition remains unclear," the New York Times notes. "There are no firm plans yet for who the leaders will be on the transfer date of June 30."

"We can beat these guys, and we're proving our resolve," one officer tells the paper. "But unless the political side keeps up, we'll have to do it again after July 1 and maybe in September and again next year and again and again."

A recently retired, 30-year-plus Marine Corps veteran – one who saw action in Iraq, Vietnam, Somalia, and elsewhere – tells Defense Tech a similar story.

He's confident that, in Iraq, "the jihadists don't own the battlefield, we do."

But he's mystified about what comes after the fight.

What is the end state? That was never made clear to me during the war and I'm not sure now. For example, during the first Gulf War we all understood that our end state was to liberate Kuwait...

I cannot tell you what it is supposed to look like in this case, and yes, I don't think we can expect any help from our NATO or UN "partners" either for the same reason. You're not the only one who is confused. There [are] a lot of us.