Iraq: Hold And Build, Or Lose

WASHINGTON POST, 5/12/2009 by Anthony H. Cordesman - Despite the violence of the past few weeks, it is Iraq that now risks becoming the "forgotten war." Iraq has become both a perceived "victory" and a war that many Americans and members of Congress would like to forget. As a result, we may rush toward the "exit" without a strategy -- and lose both the ongoing war and the peace that could follow. ∴ It is all too easy to forget that we "won" in Vietnam. We left having defeated the Viet Cong, having forced North Vietnam to halt its offensives -- and having gotten a Nobel Prize for the settlement. We created something approaching a functioning democracy, a reasonable level of development, and Vietnamese forces that seemed able to defend both without our support. It only took a few years, however, to show how costly an exit without a strategy can be. Read more at the Washington Post...

Hat tip: John H. Detweiler
John says, "As Jeff Limon says, 'History may not repeat but it rhymes.'"