Replies

"There are probably more parallels to Iraq in Vietnamization. "

Yes, Of course! We are attempting to reapply one of the most failed aspects of Vietnam in Iraq, despite the wishes of our military.

,Whoever defeated Germany, Russia or the US. is absolutely irrelevant to our high risk gamble in Iraq. Germany was defeated. Iraq was not, and that’s all that’s relevant to our current problem. Whatever the status of 1st Mar Div, I MEF, or the 82nd is tactical, not strategic. Strategically, we opted to quit the war early.

The Iraqi resistance has the advantage of support from Syria, al Qaeda and Iraq. This will be a long simmering problem, tying up our troop for years. We will probably come up with some sort of positive results, but there will be so much grey in our “victory” that it will be un-saleable to the Arab world as a model. That’s a big failure in my mind.

The other big failure is that this will be so prolonged, muddied and political that there is absolutely zero chance of attempting a military defeat of another terrorist nation. They know this so there will be next to zero intimidation that we can level on them as well.

I think that after Iraq, there will be no consensus on what went wrong in Iraq. People will lose sight of the 10k lb elephant in the room and pick at TACTICS, calling them strategy. The elephant is that we never defeated Iraq, didn’t enter many cities and neighborhoods. That’s indicative of a superpower in dissolution.

I'm more optimistic, we've learned from our mistakes. The problem is to make strategic adjustments when bullets are flying and tactical problems are overwhelming. You're right though, we have to "win" in Iraq to win anywhere else in the Middle East.

Rather than dissolution, America's best days are coming. I think you're crystal ball needs polishing.