Iraq and Vietnam

Since everyone appears to think that the war in Iraq is, like Vietnam, lost from the beginning, I think that I, as a layman, ought to point out that while the war may not be winnable, it is not like Vietnam. I won't bother mentioning whether I support the war or not, because, at this point, that question is irrelevant. We shouldn't worry about what we did do; only what we should do now.

It would seem that we are in a situation like that of Vietnam. Our enemies are using the same sort of guerrilla warfare which was our undoing in Asia, we have lost more than three thousand men, and there is no end in sight, as they say. Furthermore, we are fighting a distant war in a country whose people are not out biggest fans.

But there are also significant differences. For one thing, in Iraq, there is no clear clash of ideologies, unlike in Vietnam where it was communism vs. democracy. In Iraq, it is more like a clash of civilizations. It is not a battle spawned in the head, but in the bowels. Iraq is in the middle of a civil war between Sunni and Shi'a; I don't think that anyone but the Republicans in the White House and Congress would deny this. But it is not a civil war in which the United States will appear as the extreme axis of evil for either side (or, at least this outcome is unlikely.)

I actually have great hopes for the future of Iraq. It may not be a nation that will help us with our War on Terror (I'm sorry, that's just a bad name), but I would like to echo Thomas Mann to express my optimism: The Iraqi people may not have decided what they want, but I believe that what they have demonstrated is that they do not want another dictator like Saddam Hussein or a theocrat like the Iranian Ayatollah Koumeini was back in the 80s.

In short, I think that Iraq will prevail. The only question is will the United States.