Iraq and Vietnam
In an interesting article Andrew Sullivan argues that Iraq is worse than Vietnam, because the consequences of defeat are higher.In other respects the analogy is flawed because the situation in Iraq is worse than Vietnam. When South Vietnam fell, the consequences were largely restricted to the region. They were awful — as the toll of communism culled hundreds of thousands in Cambodia and Vietnam. But they ended at the ocean.
In Iraq the consequences of American withdrawal could be a full-scale civil war, widespread ethnic cleansing, and the involvement of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and even Egypt in a potentially catastrophic Sunni-Shi’ite conflagration. Add to that the possibility of Turkey intervening in Kurdistan and you could have the region with a chokehold on the world’s energy supplies turning into a corpse-ridden, Balkan desert.
It's possible this is what will happen, but it's worth remembering that although (at least geopolitically) the consequences of defeat in Vietnam 'ended at the ocean', that wasn't how it was perceived beforehand - the whole point of 'domino theory' was based on the fear of defeat spreading.
posted by Matthew @ 10/22/2006 11:03:00 AM
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