WASHINGTON: Four decades after America became bogged down in an unpopular war in Southeast Asia, President George W. Bush finds himself increasingly haunted by an analogy the White House dreads -- Iraq as another Vietnam.
The administration insists there are few parallels. Today's war in Iraq is fought by an all-volunteer military, the US body count is much lower and there is nothing like the anti-war protests that caught fire in the 1960s.
However, when Bush flies to Hanoi for the first time on Friday to attend an Asia-Pacific summit hosted by former foes, it will be a reminder of striking similarities between the conflicts.
Bush loyalists are so uneasy at the thought of Iraq becoming a Vietnam-style failure that some hesitate to even mention the name of the drawn-out war that polarized Americans a generation ago. They refer to it as the “V-word.”
As public support for Bush's Iraq policy has eroded in the face of mounting US casualties and rising violence, the president can't seem to escape the comparisons.
“Iraq is in many ways a quagmire,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It's a parallel to Vietnam the administration doesn't want to admit.”
The closest Bush has come is when he mused last month that the latest spike in violence in Iraq “could be” comparable to the 1968 Tet offensive by the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies that helped shift US public opinion against the Vietnam war.
The White House denied he was implying Iraq had reached a similar turning point. Instead he meant that America's enemies were trying to influence the US congressional elections.
Whether the theory was valid or not, Bush's Republicans took a beating in the Nov. 7 polls, losing control of Congress to Democrats in what was seen as a repudiation of his Iraq policy. That has only further fuelled debate on whether Bush, who avoided service in Southeast Asia when he joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, is now saddled with his own Vietnam.
The war has pushed Bush's approval ratings down into the 30s, comparable to presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the Vietnam era, and polls show a majority of Americans now think it was a mistake going into Iraq in the first place.
Even Bush's consultations on Monday with a bipartisan commission on Iraq led by his father's ex-secretary of state, James Baker, carry echoes of Vietnam. The panel is seen as the best hope for changing course, though the options are limited.
Near the end of his term, Johnson, a Democrat, turned to elder statesmen for advice on Vietnam. It still took until the mid-1970s for the United States to extricate itself fully.
In both wars, troops went in with little understanding of the culture or the enemy they faced, military historians say.
America's failings in Vietnam were laid mostly on Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, who directed the war effort, just as Donald Rumsfeld, Bush's hard-line defence chief, did in Iraq.
Like McNamara, Rumsfeld, who became the administration's first election casualty last week, was jettisoned as doubts of victory became entrenched and calls for an exit strategy grew.
Bush is now depending on Iraq's new army to take increasing responsibility to allow a drawdown of US forces. Progress has been slow. It was a policy Nixon dubbed “Vietnamization” in 1969. Six years later, communist forces took Saigon.
The old “domino theory” has also taken on new life. Instead of Asia falling to communism, Bush warns Iraq could become the first in a line of Arab states to fall to what he calls `Islamic terrorism.’
Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, conceded that while some fears about a communist Vietnam never materialized, the key distinction was that unlike Iraq no one had predicted a “clear and present danger” to America.
Other differences stand out. In Vietnam, 500,000 US troops, many of them disgruntled draftees, fought a large guerrilla army. In Iraq, 150,000 troops are trying to avert sectarian civil war while confronting a fragmented insurgency.—Reuters
