Iraq is the New Vietnam, argues Bush

In a rare moment of clarity and insight, President Bush compared the ongoing war and occupation of Iraq with the fateful American intervention in Vietnam.

Of course, he's not the first person to make such a comparison, although his conclusions regarding American policy in Iraq are something of a novelty.

Apparently, according to the President, the mistake the Americans made in Iraq was that they left too early, a decision which cost millions of lives. If the Americans had stayed rather than prematurely withdrawing (you'll find these debates are filled with sexual metaphors) then millions of Vietnamese people who died would not have. The implications for this regarding Iraq are clear to George - we need to stay in Iraq until the job is done.

Now, before I say anything about the insanity that is the occupation of Iraq, let's address Bush's "Short History of the American-Vietnamese War" - a narrative worthy of the IHR school of "history".

The Vietnam War, as popularly understood, refers to the process, not the event, of American intervening of behalf of Vietnamese "anti-communists", mainly based in the South, against the left-wing, nationalist rebels based in the North. This process of intervention involved large-scale bombing of civilians in the North (and neighbouring countries), political assassinations, election rigging, torture and rape. Millions of Vietnamese people were killed. Chemical and biological warfare played a full and complete part in the American campaign. In the end, as a result of a massive anti-war movement at home and abroad, and the gradual disintegration of the American army, the Americans were forced to pull out of Vietnam in 1975. The nationalist rebels quickly established dominion over the whole of the country.

This new republic, whilst avowedly "socialist", remained staunchly Stalinist. It was, and is, repressive and undemocratic, but it's not genocidal. Victory over the Americans and the Southern stooges represented progress for the Vietnamese people and prevented millions of more deaths in Vietnam. This new government was also responsible for overthrowing the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, doubtless saving millions more lives. Still, the new republic had to deal with the legacy of the War, including the effects of the chemical weapons used by the Americans during the war on future generations. Since the end of the Cold War, it has evolved, predictably enough, along the Chinese path - splicing market liberalization with "communist" political structures. It is, for bourgeois economists, something of a success story.

The Vietnamese people were saved by the Vietcong from American butchery. Their struggle, against all the odds, was as heroic as it was costly.

Iraq is not the new Vietnam. The Iraqis lack the united Political and military focus of the Vietnamese liberation movements, the NLF. The Americans were disadvantaged in Vietnam by the jungle surroundings. The Iraqi resistance lacks the co-ordinated backing afforded to the Vietcong by the Soviet Union and China.

But there are similarities. Both involved America arrogantly and violently trying to subvert the right of a people to determine for themselves their own future. Both were wars that could not be won - for every guerrilla they kill, two will appear in their place. Both are incredibly unpopular at home and abroad and both have left American imperialism wounded.

All we can hope for now is an end to the conflict in Iraq that mirrors the one in Vietnam.