# Iraq and Vietnam **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 2, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708 "2005-01-02T17:36:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/1 "2005-01-02T17:36:52Z")
From [Slate:](http://slate.msn.com/id/2111432/) > [@](#): > > In Hue, three Marine battalions (roughly 3,000 men) plunged into a vicious house-to-house fight with 12,000 North Vietnamese, ultimately routing them after suffering harsh losses. In April 2004, three Marine battalions attacked several thousand terrorists in Fallujah and were days away from taking the city when the White House called off the attack. In November, three new Marine battalions joined two Army mechanized infantry battalions in a sweeping attack to retake the city. They succeeded, although outbreaks of fighting continue. While the North Vietnamese fought a coordinated defensive battle for Hue City until they were annihilated, the terrorists in Fallujah fought in small packs, hiding among the tens of thousands of structures in the “city of mosques.” In the three-week battle for Hue, 147 Marines were killed and 857 wounded. In the twin battles for Fallujah, more than 104 soldiers and Marines have been killed and more than 1,100 wounded in a battle that will continue to take lives, like the three Marines who encountered yet another pocket of fighters last week. The above forcefully makes the point that the casualty counts are similar in similar situations in the two countries and the two wars. The big difference is the disproportionate burden being shared by a much smaller group of people: > [@](#): > > Volunteers outnumbered conscripts by a 9-1 ratio in the units that saw combat during the war’s early days in 1966, and at first they enjoyed the support of a country that believed in their cause. But as the burden widened and deepened, and conscripts did more of the fighting and dying, the country’s faith evaporated. **Today’s burden is not wide, but it is deep.** Communities such as Oceanside, Calif., home to Camp Pendleton and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, have suffered tremendous loss during this war - nearly one-quarter of U.S. combat dead in 2004 were stationed at Camp Pendleton. Military leaders should be mindful of this fact: **To send infantrymen on their third rotations to Iraq this spring is akin to assigning a trooper three tours in Vietnam: harsh in 1966 and a total absurdity by 1968.** So, the question is, as it has been since the insurgency got serious: send in more troops to make the burden lighter, or bring them home? And if you come down on the side of sending more troops, you have to realistically factor in that a draft may be inevitable if that road is taken. I come down on the side of bringing them home. An editorial in _Barron’s_, of all places, back in September (you can see the dating by the reference to the Presidential candidates), said it best: > [@](#): > > In the first few days of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, US tank armadas paused…A squad of support troops made a wrong turn and some were killed, others captured…There was an instant outcry that American forces were bogged down in a futile quagmire…A political cartoonist, Daryl Cagle, imagined such defeatists as a bunch of unruly kids on a car trip. “Is it Vietnam yet? Is it Vietnam yet?” The goggle-eyed little passengers were driving the driver-a caricature of President Bush-absolutely nuts… > It was nothing like a quagmire. It was cut and dried. The US Army, the US Marines and the British Army rolled over a numerically superior Iraqi force by using superior training and equipment… > Peacekeeping and nation-building began in the midst of rioting and looting…Some cities and towns are under the control of people who never surrendered…The liberation of Iraq, which seemed to us like a good idea-even a noble idea-at the time, now reminds us of Winston Churchill’s injunction against a land war in Asia. He said it would be like getting into the water to fight a shark. > Now the kids in the backseat are right. It’s a quagmire. Both major candidates for president acknowledge our soldiers will be in Iraq a long time. Both say that we cannot afford to appear weak and irresolute before our enemies. **We heard all this during the last quagmire. It was bogus then, and it’s bogus now. Winning commands respect from friends and enemies and losing does not, no matter how slowly we lose.** I vote for cutting our losses. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/2 "2005-01-02T17:47:17Z")
I maintain, and have long maintained, that the Administration and the US as a whole aren’t taking the Iraq war as a serious threat to national security. Most people vaguely support the idea, I guess based on the election results, but only if it doesn’t interfere with their tax cuts make Wall Street nervous. I believe that you should only go to war in cases of clear and present threats to national security and then you should mobilize the national resources to remove the threat as rapidly as possible, if such removal is possible at all. “Limited war” is to me an oxymoron. All we have done in Iraq is remove an admittedly bad government and are in the process of replacing it with a puppet, meantime in the process we ruined a large fraction of the infrastructure which we can’t rebuild expeditiously because people object to us as occupiers. Joseph Heller, where are you when we need you? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/3 "2005-01-02T17:54:12Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > The above forcefully makes the point that the casualty counts are similar in similar situations in the two countries and the two wars. The big difference is the disproportionate burden being shared by a much smaller group of people: > [@](#): > > In the **three-week battle for Hue** , **147 Marines were killed and 857 wounded**. **In the twin battles for Fallujah** , more than \*\*104 soldiers and Marines have been killed and more than 1,100 wounded \*\* in a battle that will continue to take lives, like the three Marines who encountered yet another pocket of fighters last week. Bolding and underlining mine. So, based on a single battle (well, two separate battles for Fallujah that were months appart) you are hypothesizing a similarity between Iraq and Vietnam? Or…well, what exactly ARE you saying? > [@pantom](#): > > So, the question is, as it has been since the insurgency got serious: send in more troops to make the burden lighter, or bring them home? And if you come down on the side of sending more troops, you have to realistically factor in that a draft may be inevitable if that road is taken. Well, bringing them home at this point isn’t really an option. Sending in more is not really necessary, though I think the military needs to do something to fix their logistics and rotation system at this point…especially with reguards to the National Guards units. I’d say though at this point the military needs to concentrate on insuring as safe an election as possible, step up efforts to get the Iraqi army back on its feet, and continue to keep up the pressure on the insurgents. Since this situation ISN’T like Vietnam, keeping up the pressure will eventually have the effect of breaking the insurgency…at least down to a lower level or background noise. And Iraqi election and the reformation of the Iraqi military will go a long way to helping that situation come about. > [@pantom](#): > > I vote for cutting our losses. I can’t tell you how happy I am that YOUR vote doesn’t count for anything on this. Cut and run? Its to cry. WE created that situation and you want to tuck tail and bolt leaving the Iraqi’s to fact the music? Basically opening the door for the religious fanatics to take over a la Iran…and basically stepping aside to allow the moderates in the country to pose for gunfire for some revolutionary counsels ‘justice’? Great. I didn’t want this war in Iraq. I think it was stupid and wasteful. However…we got it now. To cut and run is to basically say its cool for Iraq (and perhaps other countries in the region) to be thrown into the fire. Think the insurgency has been bad? It ain’t NUFF compared to what will happen if the US tucks tail and bolts now. Or perhaps you are thinking that the US could pull out and put this mess on the UN?? Its to laugh. Even IF they agreed to take over our mess (something I find HIGHLY unlikely without assurance the US military will stay but under UN control), what do you suppose they could do differently than what we are doing? You think that the white and blue of the UN is going to have some kind of magic soothing effect? lol. -XT ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/4 "2005-01-02T18:01:29Z")
Simple question: do you think it’s fair for a trooper to serve three rotations in a combat zone? If not, do you have a solution to this problem, given current manpower constraints, that doesn’t involve a draft? Coming up with hypotheticals about what might happen in Iraq if we leave doesn’t solve the problem. Our involvement did indeed create a mess. You have no way of knowing if our leaving will result in anything worse than what would happen if we stay. Therefore, you have to deal with the present reality. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/5 "2005-01-02T18:17:23Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > Simple question: do you think it’s fair for a trooper to serve three rotations in a combat zone? If not, do you have a solution to this problem, given current manpower constraints, that doesn’t involve a draft? I obliquely answered this question in my post where I said “though I think the military needs to do something to fix their logistics and rotation system at this point…especially with reguards to the National Guards units.” Is it fair? Of course its not fair. Its a major screw up that the military didn’t have its logistics in order BEFORE the invasion so that this wouldn’t be a problem, so that fresh troops were earmarked for rotation to Iraq. I think the military is NOW getting a handle on this, but we probably won’t see an substantial results for 6 more months or so IMO. Mainly I think this is unfair for the National Guard units stationed in Iraq. The regular units its certainly a burden, but as long as their enlistment isn’t up (this is of course another point I’ll try and address) you pretty much go where the military says to go and do what it says to do…right way, wrong way, military (or Navy way I as I learned it) way. However, defering enlistment expiration is another thing thats been unfair. Its certainly understandable that the military wants to hold on to veterans in theater…but again, this is a failure of proper logistics planning IMO. > [@pantom](#): > > Coming up with hypotheticals about what might happen in Iraq if we leave doesn’t solve the problem. Our involvement did indeed create a mess. You have no way of knowing if our leaving will result in anything worse than what would happen if we stay. Well, see thats where you are wrong. A monkey, blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other can figure out that if the US pulls out at this point the country will collapse into a vicious multisided civil war…whether or not it spreads to engulf other parts of the region is less known of course. It might…it might not. Personally I think it WILL drag in powers like Iran and perhaps Saudi (Shi’ite vs Sunni, with slaughter on both sides…ya, it could draw in more than just Iraq). But the collapse and destruction of whats left of Iraq in a civil war? Its not a hypothetical…its reality. Hell, there is no guarentee that if the US STAYS the country might not collapse into full blow civil war. If we leave its a certainty. So, you can try and pretend its a ‘hypotetical’ all you like and then base your ‘I vote for cutting our losses.’ on such happy thoughts…but to take a page from your Vietnam analogy, remember what happened THERE when the US pulled out. It will be worse in Iraq. -XT ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/6 "2005-01-02T18:30:35Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Its a major screw up that the military didn’t have its logistics in order BEFORE the invasion so that this wouldn’t be a problem, so that fresh troops were earmarked for rotation to Iraq. I think the military is NOW getting a handle on this, but we probably won’t see an substantial results for 6 more months or so IMO. Blame “the military” if you want to but “the military” didn’t force itself into a war, heedles of all other worldwide military commitments and without sufficient time to make reasonable accomodations to the increased burdens. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/7 "2005-01-02T18:34:33Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > I vote for cutting our losses. I vote for your vote having no effect whatsoever on our plans and policies. One battle in each conflict allows you to draw such sweeping conclusions, eh? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/8 "2005-01-02T18:37:23Z")
Right, if “the army you have” isn’t sufficient, you fix that problem before you go into an optional war, or you’re dooming them. The parallels to the lessons of Vietnam, unlearned by those who participated in neither it nor the domestic debate about it, have been obvious all along, and are becoming more extensive, not less. **xtisme** , the current approach, staying “until the job is done” whatever that means, is not necessarily better than a partitioning. Even that can be done without a civil war if we, and they, accept it. The current approach is to prop up a corrupt puppet with little popular support in Allawi and hope for the war to be domesticated, exactly as we did with Thieu and “Vietnamization”. That futile approach killed some twenty thousand more Americans and several times that many Vietnamese - except that then we didn’t have the lessons of history availab.e ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/9 "2005-01-02T18:51:53Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Hell, there is no guarentee that if the US STAYS the country might not collapse into full blow civil war. If we leave its a certainty. I think it’s the other way around. There is nothing positive the occupation can possibly achieve toward security, elections, reconstruction, whatever. Their presence (combined with their inevitably incompetent actions) is the cause of the insurgency and violence. The reason they should pull out is not to “cut their losses” or to “cut and run”; it is the solution to the current chaos. Although, due to their not leaving earlier, the situation HAS developed to a point where the outcome is not very clear any more. Terrorists openly killing innocent Iraqis in broad daylight? I blame the occupation for causing the situation to deteriorate to such a point, and now, for possibly having given those terrorists the definitive upper hand. (Obviously, I don’t blame the occupation for the killings themselves.) The chances for civil war will be less after the occupiers leave. For two reasons: because it MAY reduce insurgent violence (e.g. against election workers or police officers); and because it would give Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia more opportunities to step in and help prevent civil war (none of those countries wants chaos in Iraq). ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/10 "2005-01-02T19:00:28Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > One battle in each conflict allows you to draw such sweeping conclusions, eh? Oh, there are plenty more similarities. Don’t like **pantom’s**? Try this one instead: [**Iraq 2004 Looks Like Vietnam 1966**](http://slate.msn.com/id/2111432/) > [@](#): > > \*\*Generational contrasts are implicit today when casualties in Iraq are referred to as light, either on their own or in comparison to Vietnam. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, for example, last July downplayed the intensity of the Iraq war on this basis, arguing that “it would take over 73 years for U.S. forces to incur the level of combat deaths suffered in the Vietnam war.” > > But a comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements, infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966—and in some cases more lethal. Even discrete engagements, such as the battle of Hue City in 1968 and the battles for Fallujah in 2004, tell a similar tale: Today’s grunts are patrolling a battlefield every bit as deadly as the crucible their fathers faced in Southeast Asia\*\* Plenty more at source. Of course, for reasons that should be rather obvious no historical conparison of two different events in different times and geographical location is bound to hold true across the line. But still, there’s no getting away from the fact that in both of these events, the US’s policy overall approach was – and is, in Iraq’s case – misguided at best, sheer duplicitous folly at worst. But hey, don’t like the Vietnam analogy? How about we use those evil French and their futile struggle to hold on to Algiers by force? All three scenarios have more in common than not. And ultimatedly, I predict that the end result in Iraq will be the same as in the other two. Only a matter of time and bodybags. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/11 "2005-01-02T19:08:34Z")
**xtisme** , you can try with all your might to take this into hypotheticals about what might happen; be my guest. The present reality is that the volunteer troops we have are being made to bear a disproportionate burden. The fact is that the country fell into disorder as a direct result of the invasion. Stating that our leaving would cause disorder is, therefore, absurd on its face. As you can see from **Frankenstein Monster** ’s post, you could just as easily come up with a hypothetical in which things get better because we leave. Thus, the question once again comes down to the present reality: we are putting an unfair burden on those who volunteered to defend this country. Not Iraq, this country, right here. After the elections, will there be any reason to keep them there, especially given the strains highlighted in the _Slate_ article? ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/12 "2005-01-02T19:11:18Z")
The best hope for getting the occupation out seems to be the elections. [First we vote, then we kick you out](http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL24Ak03.html) > [@](#): > > The United Iraqi Alliance - the Shi’ite, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani-supervised electoral list (228 candidates) - has a detailed, 23-point platform. According to its main negotiator, Hussein Shahristani, the platform insists on the “sovereignty, unity and Islamic identity” of Iraq, and most crucially includes a plan with a precise date for the end of the military occupation. Whether the Americans will accept the plan (neo-conservative dreams for the Middle East collapsing in the sand), or whether this will be enough to placate Sunni anger, no one yet knows. Ignoring that last sentence (which I quoted for completeness) this sounds rather better than Vietnam. Although I don’t know how far they made election preparations then. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/13 "2005-01-02T19:14:00Z")
> [@Frankenstein Monster](#): > > The best hope for getting the occupation out seems to be the elections. Sorry, we missed our chance in the elections. Oh, you meang the **Iraq** elections. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/14 "2005-01-02T19:22:28Z")
> [@Frankenstein Monster](#): > > Ignoring that last sentence (which I quoted for completeness) this sounds rather better than Vietnam. Although I don’t know how far they made election preparations then. Does it “sound rather better than Vietnam”? In South Vietnam, the United States leaders had to deal with a situation where, on the one hand, their commitment to democracy through free and fair elections was fundamental to their purported reason for being there in the first place; and, on the other hand, they could never allow free and fair elections because such would not only topple the U.S.-backed regime but almost certainly would bring a Communist government to power. See a parallel here? From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam\_war:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war:) > [@](#): > > The Geneva Conference of 1954 specified that elections to unify the country would be scheduled to take place in July, 1956, but such elections were never held. In the context of the Cold War, the United States (under Eisenhower) had begun to view Southeast Asia as a potential key battleground in the greater Cold War, and American policymakers feared that democratic elections would simply lead to communist influence into the South Vietnam’s government. > > Diem’s RVN government had gained the support of the US to circumvent the scheduled democratic elections, and under Diem’s dictatorship, South Vietnam would be free of both a repressive communist oligarchy, and a democratic process that threatened to irreversibly install it. The North Vietnamese had been winning the public relations battle; it had implemented a massive agricultural reform program which distributed land to peasant farmers, and the people of the South took notice. President Eisenhower noted in his memoirs that if a nation-wide election had been held, the communists would have won. Also, it was said to have been unlikely that the Northern Communists would allow a free election in their half of Vietnam. In the end, neither the US nor the two Vietnams had signed the election clause in the accord. Initially, it appeared as if a partitioned Vietnam would become the norm, similar in nature to the partitioned Korea created years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/15 "2005-01-02T19:27:17Z")
Well, **Brain Glutton** , I seriously doubt the US would stand in the way of elections in this case. It would be an enormous blow to the propaganda about this war; democratization is the only rationale they have left, after all. And if a decision to cancel the elections leads to civil war, oh man, the consequences would just be unbelievable. No, they have to have those elections. And they are the best hope for getting our butts out of there. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/16 "2005-01-02T19:36:54Z")
Thanks for the post, **BG** , I always enjoy being educated on history. Still, there seems to be a very good chance of an occupation-hostile government getting elected in Iraq; and I’m not reading that much credible news about the occupation leaders trying to undermine the elections. [Bush: I would accept Islamic Iraq](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3755850.stm) On preview, what **pantom** said… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/17 "2005-01-02T19:45:06Z")
> [@Frankenstein Monster](#): > > [Bush: I would accept Islamic Iraq](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3755850.stm) Oh, really? And if the new Islamic government’s first action were to repudiate all contracts with Halliburton and other American and British corporations made by the CA government and the interim Iraq government – and kick all foreigners out of Iraqi oil facilities – would Bush accept that? There were no important resources in Vietnam; the war was all about ideology, prestige, and geopolitics. This is a little different. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/18 "2005-01-02T19:46:30Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > No, they have to have those elections. Yes . . . but they don’t **have** to run them honestly, do they? ---
**Author:** ![eponymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e0b2c6/32.png) [@eponymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eponymous)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/19 "2005-01-02T19:52:00Z")
**Frankenstein Monster** bring up an interesting point which highlights the dilemma the US is currently faced with. If the Shia win the upcoming elections (ostensibly to write a new constitution) and solidify their position as the political voice of Iraq, what is the US going to do if the Iraqi’s want us to leave? Was not one reason why Iraq was such an attractive “target” was the expectation that the US would maintain a _permanent_ military presence in the region (in the form of bases like we have in Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.)? Even if the elections somehow go off without any major problems, if the Iraqis want us to leave, what will we do? Would we still somehow maintain a permanent military presence (in the form of bases) in the country? If so, I can’t see how this would have a long-run stabilizing influence on the country if the elections go as expected (Shia coming to power with the expectation that the US eventually leaves). In some respects, the situation in Iraq is _worse_ than Vietnam. In Vietnam, the US wasn’t trying to maintain a permanent military presence there. In other words, from a policy perspective we had a face-saving “out.” With respect to the policy in Iraq (as it stands now), there is no face-saving “out”. At least with respect to much of what is put forth in the neo-con vision of the Middle East in the PNAC. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708/20 "2005-01-02T19:52:24Z")
No, but you’re forgetting Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The USG has been trying since practically day one to figure out a way to go around him, but I think they’ve just about given up. Any outcome that doesn’t give his allies major power is going to be seen as illegitimate. Its taken a while, but I think the Admin has finally allowed that message to sink in. Even I can’t fathom Bush being that thick-headed. Given that, they will try to cut a deal with him about all those things you mentioned. We’ll just have to wait and see how that turns out. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-and-vietnam/282708.md?page=2)