As White House denials grow insistent, some of the sharpest thinkers of the Vietnam generation see stark parallels with the war in Iraq.
Helicopters are blown out of the sky by unseen enemies. Car bombs are detonated by guerrillas who seem to melt into the night. Casualties among U.S. troops and their allies are mounting by the day, and so are worry and mistrust among American voters. In Washington, top officials in the administration of George W. Bush insist there's no comparison between Iraq and Vietnam -- yet to judge by their actions, they have recently come to the nightmare realization that the parallels are real.
Abruptly, last week, Bush and his top advisors scrambled to change the dynamic of the 8-month-old conflict in Iraq: They abandoned their vow to make a slow, steady transition to democracy. Instead of moving ahead with plans to write an Iraqi constitution, they're rushing into elections. Desperate to bring more troops home before Election Day next November, they've enrolled untested Iraqis in an Evelyn Wood course in speed-policing.
And meanwhile, the CIA is warning that the U.S. in nearing a tipping point in Iraq, with more Iraqis losing faith in their liberators and edging closer to support for a guerrilla insurgency.
Is Iraq the new Vietnam? Partisans on the left and right have argued the issue since before the war began, and now the question is seeping into the mainstream. Both the White House and war critics know that it's a high-stakes debate, because success in the region -- and Bush's chances for reelection -- will depend in great part on whether skittish voters believe that the current conflict is another tragic, costly, unwinnable quagmire.
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http://salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/17/iraq_viet/index.html
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