(cartoon via
Cox and Forkum)
As Ollie has gone over at length, Iraq is too far different from Vietnam militarily to be compared to it: there is no reason to say that we will lose it militarily (and I count the withdraw of US troops due to good public manipulation by the North Vietnamese leadership, whether concious or not, as a military victory,) and there is little to no chance that there will not be a free and democratic Iraq within another year.
However, that is not the point of this little diatribe, and not of the cartoon above either. The point is this: the priorities have been mixed up. A free and democratic Iraq will not nessesarily equate to a staunch western ally. The underlying assumption behind the goal being a 'free and democratic Iraq' has been that freedom - the greatest of all things - is a natural yearning of humans, no matter where they are.
This is, historically, untrue. Instances are legion where you can see a population voluntarily give away their freedom in exchange for something they feel is better - religion, safety, national prowess, worker's solidaridy, whatever they called it. It was prioritizing an individual's freedom lower than some other quality; these people have (and will) pay for their follies in a historical sense, but that is neither here nor there. The point is: it has been established that there cannot be any 'natural' yearning for freedom. There is, perhaps, a 'natural' yearning to be out from under the yoke of a quasi-genocidal, totalitarian maniac, but that is not nessesarily a positive.
So, where does that leave us? A complex arab mentality in Iraq (I'll post a long essay on arab tribalism soon after this) along with religions, collectivism, etc. All this means is that you have many, many groups who will place one thing or another above freedom that the USA and the western world in general will not enjoy. Though the process of liberating/occupying Iraq (doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction?) is going apace and our soldiers will be successful, what I think is a threat to this mission becoming a failure is depending on a group of people who have had little experience themselves in a free democracy to construct a free democracy.
How does this correlate to Vietnam? Well, only on a few (rather general) points, all focusing on the political aspect of it. Rather than, say, allowing the military to do its job properly, it has been hamstrung repeatedly, unable to go on the offensive and take the fight to the militias aggressively and consistantly. Though (thankfully) they ("the" resistence: see Ollie for explaination of sneer quotes) are far too weak and unsupported to ever achieve victory, the holding back of our military for fear of not being PC, or
hurting the Iraqis, etc., illustrates this key philosophical flaw in the GOP's position vis a ve Iraq. The assumption is we should not be too nasty to the Iraqis, and it is not nessesary, as everything will fall into place when they are given democracy.
The bottom line is then that, since we can see fairly clearly that the arabs are not going to adopt western democracy, and arn't going to be grounded in the principles which has made the west, you know, a bit better than the mideast, then perhaps we need a heavier hand.
The idea has been floating around for a bit but hasn't been discussed, namely attempting to 'westernize' large sections of Iraq, Roman-style. Rather than leave the governance of a nation up to people who're as likely as not to hate on us anyway, and then force us to invade (again,) stay there, and set up a regime that will accomplish America's goals, and then start spreading capitalism, rationalism, secularism (or at least quasi-secular versions of a religion, better that than nothing), etc in Iraq. Once the population is westernized, self governence is fine: we know that the majority of the population is firmly grounded in ideals we know to be good, rather than swathed in tribalism, and having their views, uhm, a little bit out of whack with reality due to the whole 'upteenth years of government-run propaganda stations,' etc. Until it is, however, we are not truly understanding what has caused 9/11 and all our recent troubles with Cold War II, and we will be forced to go back again, eventually, until we get it right. You cannot defeat mideast-based terrorism without defeating the tribalism, introducing (and promoting) western ideals such as equality, capitalism, etc., and exposing radical Islam for what it is: a sham.
All of this, however, is impossible to do, due to the political constraints on our military. We will not lose: but I don't think we'll win, either, not until people understand fully what this is all about.
-MiB