No Quagmire

IF Iraq is a replay of Vietnam, it is running on fast-forward. The media are reporting that the U.S. is failing to provide basic public services to the Iraqis, including public safety, and that resistance to the U.S. presence is mounting. That resistance is taking the lives of American troops at the rate of something like one a day. The Iraqi economy remains inert. International pressure is mounting on Washington to offer the U.N. a greater say in governing Iraq in return for military and civil assistance from countries like France and Russia that opposed the war.

Less than five months after the introduction of U.S. troops into Iraq, Democratic presidential candidates are criticizing the conduct of the war and asking what the U.S. exit strategy is. Mainstream political figures were not asking such questions about Vietnam until 1967—several years after troops had been in Vietnam, and two years after they had arrived in force. When the antiwar movement began, it was a tentative development that was careful to present its criticisms in patriotic tones. “Amerika” came a little later, after the movement had gradually assembled both a popularized New Left critique and a broad Left coalition to support it. Full-fledged radicals did not take over the Democratic party until the McGovern candidacy in 1972—and they did not persuade moderate Democrats to talk their language until the Carter years.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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IF Iraq is a replay of Vietnam, it is running on fast-forward. The media are reporting that the U.S. is failing to provide basic public services to the Iraqis, including public safety, and that resistance to the U.S. presence is mounting. That resistance is taking the lives of American troops at the rate of something like one a day. The Iraqi economy remains inert. International pressure is mounting on Washington to offer the U.N. a greater say in governing Iraq in return for military and civil assistance from countries like France and Russia that opposed the war.

Less than five months after the introduction of U.S. troops into Iraq, Democratic presidential candidates are criticizing the conduct of the war and asking what the U.S. exit strategy is. Mainstream political figures were not asking such questions about Vietnam until 1967—several years after troops had been in Vietnam, and two years after they had arrived in force. When the antiwar movement began, it was a tentative development that was careful to present its criticisms in patriotic tones. “Amerika” came a little later, after the movement had gradually assembled both a popularized New Left critique and a broad Left coalition to support it. Full-fledged radicals did not take over the Democratic party until the McGovern candidacy in 1972—and they did not persuade moderate Democrats to talk their language until the Carter years.