The only possible positive is this: Did the US demand Iranian Qassem Suliemani and his Kuds Force back off before helping the Iraqis in Tikrit? (though Suliemani would later just come in and take Tikrit afterward, so that doesn’t make much sense)
“Did the US demand Iranian Qassem Suliemani and his Kuds Force back off before helping the Iraqis in Tikrit?”
Apparently so. The US is reported to have insisted that operations be coordinated (i.e. commanded) out of the command center in Baghdad (rather than Suleimani’s hooch on Camp Speicher).
Ostensibly (and objectively) this is to minimize fratricide in the air operations. Effectively however, it means that the the Shia militias and Iranian special groups are shunted aside as failures.
The new plan is that they will sit across the river or outside of town, as the Iraqi Army walks over the rubble of the last ISIS strongholds and raises the flag in victory - provided of course that the Americans come across with enough air to wrap this up.