Iraq-nam

“Iraq is Vietnam.”

Right! says the Administration: we are winning the war but just like Vietnam, the Democrats will cut off support for our troops and the struggling government. This is Henry Kissinger's version of the history of Vietnam – we (actually, he) won the war but Congress withdrew support too early. Translation: stay the course despite the undeniable evidence of failure.

Right! Say the Democrats, we are bogged down in a hopeless war and should either change course dramatically or just leave ASAP. As John Kerry said about Vietnam: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Translation: cut and run despite the likelihood that this will produce a humanitarian and geopolitical nightmare.

Wrong! I say: Vietnam was a minor country, technologically backward and on the edge of nowhere. Iraq is a major country, technologically capable, in a fragile region and possessor of critical oil resources. The global economy will be hurt – and terrorists helped – by our rushed withdrawal. Translation: the consequences of failure in Iraq are much worse than they were in Vietnam.

After Gulf War I, George the First encouraged the Shiites to rise up against Saddam Hussein, suggesting that we would help them. They did but we didn't, and they died by the tens of thousands when Hussein brutally suppressed the uprising. George II started Gulf War II, which deposed Hussein and encouraged the most noble and self-sacrificing Iraqis to risk everything to build a democratic and multi-ethnic nation. But the appalling ineptitude of the Bush administration has ensured that any hope for a new Iraq – always faint – is now almost certainly gone.

In the end, we will abandon these brave people, leaving them at the mercy of the lowest and most despicable among them, just as we did the Shiites and the Vietnamese. That's how Iraq is like Vietnam.