Well, this is pretty well-trodden territory. Of course there are all sorts of really important differences — notably the absence of a “North Iraq” tied to, and supplied by, two big communist empires. In some respects the two wars are OPPOSITES. E.g. our great enemy in Vietnam was pan-Vietnamese patriotism, which the communists appealed to very successfully. The problem in Iraq isn’t too much Iraqi patriotism, it’s too little!

The two situations have this in common though: they both suffer from serious mission creep, and a corresponding democratic deficit.

—Mission creep: No American thought, in 1963 (say), that 12 years of major campaigning against a stubborn enemy, with half a million troops engaged at one point, and an end total 55,000 US deaths, was in our future. No American thought that. (I don’t think so, anyway. If a reader can come up with one I’ll acknowledge it.)

—Democratic deficit: Americans could therefore rightly feel, in 1973, that their leaders had got them into a situation they never wished to be in, had never been asked whether they would wish to be in, and therefore were under no moral obligation, as citizens of a democratic polity, to go on supporting the continuation of.

—Mission creep: No American thought, in 2003, that 3+ years of major campaigning in Iraq, with 130,000+ troops continutously engaged, and a running total of 2,500 deaths after that 3+ years, was in our future. No American thought that. I am not speaking of the War on Terror–Rick Brookhiser was already telling me at about that time that he expected the WoT to go on for the rest of his lifetime. I’m talking about engagement in Iraq.

—Democratic deficit: Americans can therefore rightly feel, in 2003, that our leaders have got us into a situation we never wished to be in, were never asked whether we would wish to be in, and therefore are under no moral obligation, as citizens of a democratic polity, to go on supporting the continuation of.