Vietnam Redux

Despite all the protestations from my fellow conservative commentators, Iraq is starting to look like Vietnam. Not on the ground over there, but in the halls of Congress over here.

Ho Chi Minh once said,

"We don't need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out."

Ho's approach is not even one degree removed from the al Qaeda in Iraq strategy for winning the war there, and Congress, forgetting its history, is stumbling down the Ho Chi Minh trail again. The only justification for taking that path is their refusal to accept the fact that all Hell descended on Southeast Asia after we left. But they have forgotten that. They think the withdrawal from Saigon was a victory for all.

WaPo columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., as usual, is leading the charge into insanity. Today's column leads with this paragraph:

This will be remembered as the week that President Bush lost control over the Iraq War debate. His administration has perhaps six months to get things right. If the situation in Iraq fails to improve significantly, public pressure for withdrawal will become irresistible.

He goes on to cite not one piece of evidence of the situation in Iraq failing to improve significantly. Even though violence is down, even though the number of American fatalities remains below anticipated losses for the first week, even though Iraqi forces are growing larger and stronger daily, even though the Iraqis will vote in a free democratic election next month, Dionne thinks the situation in Iraq is not satisfactory.

What he does cite is exactly what the ZZ boys (Zarqawi and Zawahiri) want to see: Rep. John Murtha calling for immediate withdrawal like some crazed porn director, the Senate resolution demanding more accountability on the war, Sen. Warner's speech assailing the war, and, of course, the Dem's own WMDs: the latest public opinion polls.

Dionne ends with the Dem's big lie:

The president's problem is ... with loyalists who are losing heart. They need to believe Bush has a plausible approach to the endgame. As of now, they don't.

The president has always been clear about his endgame, and it is more plausible today than it has been at any time since the insurgency started after Saddam's fall. When the Iraqis are ready to keep Iraqi free, we're outta there. End of game.

That kind of endgame will keep bin ZZ disheartened, and will lead to our victory and a stronghold of democracy in the Middle East. Do the Dems want to deny Bush a victory so badly that they're willing to jeopardize our future safety?