Vietnam and Iraq Wars: The Price of not Learning from History

It is obvious to many us who understand history. But some reason there is very little debate about the parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq wars:

"The way in which Iraq is similar to Vietnam is the profound effect this war is having on the military. We have the same problems winning a guerrilla war on the guerrilla's home turf," said Jon Alterman, director of Mideast programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The similarities:

_Both wars initially had majority support from Americans that evaporated as the war dragged on without clear-cut victories.

_Successive escalation by Presidents Johnson and Nixon were billed as setting the stage for victory, to be followed by "Vietnamization" in which South Vietnamese forces would stand up as U.S. forces stood down. Sounds like Bush's game plan for Iraq.

_Before a recent admission of mistakes, Bush had been consistently upbeat. So were Johnson and Nixon administration figures, going back to Gen. William Westmoreland's premature 1969 sighting of a "light at the end of the tunnel."

_Johnson called Vietnam War critics "nervous nellies." Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney accused Democrats of wanting to "cut and run," White House press secretary Tony Snow branded them "Defeatocrats."

_Just as Iraq is depicted as the central front in a global war against terrorism, Vietnam was portrayed as pivotal in a global war against communism.

What the Congress did during the Vietnam War and could do this time around:

In the 1970s, Congress began putting limits on presidential war activities, rescinding the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, passing the War Powers Act, prohibiting combat operations in Cambodia and Laos, even capping the number of ground troops. But the war for the most part continued until the final cutoff of funds.