Leave it to the Israeli’s to get it right on our actions in Iraq. The Jerusalem Post has a pretty good opinion column up about how Bush could handle Iraq better than he is, and compares him to Lyndon Johnson dealing with Vietnam.
America lost in Vietnam not because Vietnam was an inherent quagmire, but because Lyndon Johnson turned it into one. Similarly, Iraq is not yet a quagmire and need not become one, its complexities as a multiethnic society notwithstanding. But in his effort to achieve multiple and in some ways conflicting objectives – building democracy, destroying the insurgency, involving the UN and so on – GWB risks turning it into one. If the president doesn’t pause for a rethink, he’ll lose more than just Iraq, just like the last Texan-born president did.