U.S. intervention in Iraq Essay

Submitted By Janet-Georgis
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There are people that are opposed to the U.S. intervention in Iraq, as they believe that it will not lead to stability and democracy. These people find similarities to America's Vietnam intervention. For them, America has once more involved in a prolonged and indecisive political and military struggle, from which it will extricate with human and economic loses. On the other there are people that are in favor of the Iraq War and they believe that there is no comparison to the Vietnam War. But, the comparison to the Vietnam War and its consequences was unavoidable, as it still influences the public's attitude towards foreign military intervention and was an event that is still in memories of today's American leaders. The question is whether there are any lessons from the American disaster in the Vietnam War that could be applied in Iraq's case. The differences between the two wars are very important: First of all, Vietnam in 1960 was a country with a long national history and a distinct national identity that was created after centuries of fighting against foreign domination. On the contrary, Iraq is a young state with many ethnicities and religions that make unity difficult. Moreover, in Vietnam the enemy was skilled and experience with important external aid and international legitimacy. In Iraq the enemy had no martial ability and was politically isolated. Besides that, in Vietnam at first the war had the form of an insurgency that changed into a conventional conflict where as in Iraq happened exactly the opposite.
The nature of the insurgency in the two cases was different, too. In Vietnam there were peasants that were centrally directed by the Communists that had a clear politico-economic and social agenda. In Iraq, the insurgents were members of small groups that their methods consisted partly of car bombings and sabotage against U.S. forces and the war objectives weren't very clear. Moreover, the U.S. was more restricted in military action in Vietnam that in Iraq, by the Chinese and the Soviet threat and they only cared about protecting South Vietnam. Nowadays, the U.S. with its military primacy is aiming at a regime change in Iraq. In Vietnam, the U.S. reached the 500,000 men and left the country after 8 years of bloodshed. In Iraq, the cost in human
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