Losing in Iraq will have horrible consequences

Mort Kondracke:

The political cartoon on my office wall shows Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a frazzled father trying to drive the car while kids in the front and back seats yell, "Is it Vietnam yet?"

Daryl Cagle's cartoon was delightful back in March 2003, lampooning critics of the war in Afghanistan. Now it's a mordant commentary on Iraq.

The tragic fact is that Iraq has become Vietnam -- a noble cause that has lost the support of the American people and Congress and is on the verge of ending in disaster. But this time, the consequences will be much worse.

Noble cause? Yes. The United States tried to save South Vietnam from being conquered by brutal communists. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush was trying to prevent weapons of mass destruction, which nearly everyone thought Iraq had, from being handed over to terrorists. And he wanted to bring democracy to Iraq as a model for the Middle East.

I think history shows that the United States and South Vietnam might have prevailed against the North but for the flagging will of the American people and opposition from the media and Congress.

For sure, as recent commentary has reminded us, the 1968 Tet offensive was a colossal military defeat for the communists -- 58,000 killed in two months -- even though it convinced Walter Cronkite and American elites that the war was unwinnable.

And so, it became unwinnable. Once Gen. Creighton Abrams took over as U.S. commander in Vietnam in 1968 and instituted new tactics, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces began winning battle after battle, but, as Abrams complained to his staff, "we never get a break from the umpires" in the media or Congress.

The Nixon policy of "Vietnamization" worked, too. U.S. troops were withdrawn over a four-year period and the South Vietnamese army successfully beat back a North Vietnamese offensive in 1972.

But in June 1973, Congress passed, in bipartisan fashion and with veto-proof margins, an amendment forbidding any further U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, meaning that the U.S. could not bomb to thwart a new invasion.

...

There is more. Kondrake is right. The Democrats are bent on doing for Iraq what they did for South Vietnam. The tragedy will be even more significant this time. What makes it worse this time is that the US is not losing in Iraq despite the belief of the Democrats who desperately want to lose in Iraq. Militarily we still have the capacity to destroy the enemy in Iraq and the enemy does not have the capacity to destroy our forces. The enemy avoids contact with our combat units whenever possible.

Right now most of the violence in Iraq is directed by factions against the non combatants of the other factions. In other words non of the factions have the military capacity to face and destroy each other much less the US forces. They are locked in an insane tribal death dual more than a fight for power. The US should regret its failure to destroy Muqtada Sadr, buthis organization is militarily weak despite his success against non combatants and some police units.