As the Iraq insurgency grows, and the country crumbles towards civil war, and American boys go on dying in the desert at a rate that's sometimes steady and sometimes fast; in short, as the spectre of American defeat begins to strengthen in the turgid sky over Baghdad, it's intriguing how many aspects of Mr Bush's imperial adventure have begun lining up to proceed in somnambulant lockstep with their precedents in Vietnam, 35 and 40 years ago.

Wayne Brown

The first of these are The Turning Points. In Vietnam in the mid-60s they were confidently predicted with each incremental commitment of US forces to the theatre. The latest batch of 50,000 soldiers dispatched to Saigon were going to win it; then the next batch of 100,000; then the next batch of 50,000, and so on.

Even after the Tet Offensive, which told the world and most Americans - including the campus students increasingly protesting the draft - that the war was lost, the Nixon White House went right on issuing its staunch reassurances: this new commitment of 50,000 more troops was going to turn the tide.

When defeat came, the Administration faced the logistical nightmare of transferring half-a-million US fighting men back home.

In Iraq, the Turning Points have been various. The staged pulling down of Saddam's statue, which was meant to tell Iraqis, Americans and the world that Uncle Sam had triumphed by force of arms once again, was soon followed by the killing of Saddam's sons;

the establishment of the Advisory Council (a transparent PR toss, since US pro-consul Paul Bremer - remember him? - went right on 'running' the country); the establishment of the Interim Governing Council (another PR toss);

FALLUJAH, Iraq - An man is treated in hospital in Fallujah, 65 kilometres (40 miles) west of Baghdad in Iraq last Thursday night after being injured during night-time clashes between insurgents and Iraqi army forces. (Photo: AP)

the capture of Saddam; the razing of Fallujah; elections; and, most recently, the laboured formation of the current 'pick up' side, the provisional government.

All were heralded by the Bush Administration as Turning Points, the beginning of the end of the insurgency. After each one, the insurgency paused briefly - and then went right on growing.
There're two more scheduled Turning Points to come.

One is the writing and ratification of a constitution, the other, the elections that are supposed to follow it. Except that both the insurgency and Sunni-Shiite suspicions are now so strong that it's a moot point whether either will occur.

And even if they do, the accelerating river of sectarian hostility, leading inexorably to the cataract of civil war, will in due course overrun them both.

Editorialised the NYT last week:
'The installation of a new government in Iraq has done nothing to end the fighting between adherents of the rival branches of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites. Sunni insurgents have killed more than 400 people since the new regime was announced last month.

Now Shiites appear to be taking revenge on Sunnis, a nightmare threatening to fracture the nation. It still isn't clear whether the legacy of American occupation will be a functioning constitutional democracy or outright civil war.

On the day of Rice's visit, nearly three dozen bodies thought to be Sunnis slain by Shiites were found in several locations in or near Baghdad. Other large-scale killings in recent weeks also have been blamed on retaliating Shiites. If revenge attacks gain more momentum, the government's fledgling security forces may not have the ability to stop the violence.'

In fact, the NYT was as usual pulling its punches: cf 'if' and 'appears' and 'may not' and 'isn't clear'. How much, one wonders, would the paper be willing to wager on that 'functioning constitutional democracy' coming to pass? One only has to mouth the phrase to disown it.

Of course, there's yet another potential Turning Point: the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, rumoured to have been seriously wounded in western Iraq.

The White House has put a $25-million bounty on Zarqawi's head, and if he dies you can expect Mr Bush to call a euphoric press conference (and no doubt his currently low poll ratings at home will surge once more).

It'll take Americans at least a month to realise that nothing has changed: that Zarqawi has been replaced by one of his lieutenants and the Islamic fundamentalist wing of the insurgency is as active as ever.

In fact, Zarqawi's death would merely deprive the Bush Administration of one of its cheapest propaganda fictions. It's long been apparent that, whenever the insurgency does more catastrophic damage than usual, US officials in Baghdad jump up and announce that 'a close Zarqawi aide' has been captured.

In fact, from the frequency of such captures, Zarqawi would appear to have scores, if not hundreds, of 'close aides' - a really rather indiscreet practice for a terrorist on the run, and one that makes it a mystery that he wasn't captured or killed long ago.

The next parallel with Vietnam is the body counts. As those old enough will remember, US military communiqués from Vietnam soon settled down to a meaningless daily announcement of the number of enemy forces killed.

(These were afterwards found to have been routinely inflated.) Day after day, the world absorbed what were supposed to be the statistics of an imminent US military victory: '33 Vietcong were killed today when', '46 Vietcong were killed today when'. It went on and on, this purely digital nonsense, for eight full years.

And increasingly in Iraq one hears that US forces have killed 10 insurgents (never eight or 11), have captured 100 insurgents (never 94 or 103), have killed 100 insurgents (never 98 or 99). And the numerals are as meaningless as in Vietnam, because in Iraq an underpaid and under-protected US volunteer army is fighting, not an opposing army, but a whole population, the newly-disenfranchised Sunnis; and the occupation forces will have to kill, capture or imprison a million insurgents and 'suspected insurgents' before they can make a dent in the potency of the Sunni resistance.

The third similarity with Vietnam is the Invade A Neighbouring Country gambit.

A time came when for the White House the key to defeating the Vietcong was for US forces to cross over into Cambodia and destroy their infiltration and supply routes there. Iraq's 'Cambodia' is alleged to be Syria; and there are mounting signs that Mr Bush is preparing to invade a second Middle East country - this in order to rescue his invasion of the first.

Thus, unsubstantiated rumours - disputed by the Syrian regime - are being circulated that 'thousands' of Islamic fighters have been streaming across the Syria-Iraq border, along with huge sums of money and materiel.

We are told that Zarqawi himself recently held a meeting in Syria with his top lieutenants; and Mr Bush and his senior Cabinet members have taken turns of late rattling their sabres at Syria. Last week, Condoleezza Rice said Syria was 'allowing its territory to be used to organise terrorist attacks against innocent Iraqis'.

The White House recalled 'for consultations' the US ambassador to Damascus three months ago (after the assassination in Lebanon of a former prime minister) and has not sent her back.

Last week, the Syrian ambassador to Washington told the NYT that his country had 'severed all links' with the US military and the CIA because of the 'unjust' American allegations, which he said his Government was taking to mean that the Bush Administration had 'decided to escalate the situation with Syria'.

The NYT report went on: 'Bush Administration officials said the options [against Syria] included possible military.action.' A fortnight ago, CNN's military expert, the retired but still gritty General Grange, said forthrightly that US forces needed to be sent across the Syrian border 'to a depth of about 10 miles' to set up a no-man's-land there.

The Syrian Government understands the threat is serious; they know the ol' GW 'Time-to-rumble' Bush is just itching to hit them. (After all, he doesn't dare hit North Korea, they might actually hit back; and Israel already has the franchise for bombing Iran.) So the Syrians are doing what they can to forestall being invaded.

Last week, Syria's UN ambassador pointedly emphasised that Syria had arrested and deported 'more than 1,200 people trying to cross the border into Iraq in recent weeks'.

He said that reports that Zarqawi had been in Syria organising his wing of the insurgency were 'a silly rumour' spread by those who 'want to damage also the relations between Syria and Iraq', and claimed that his Government had given 'a lot of information to the United States. which prevented many attacks'.

All this may be true. But a White House that can conjure out of thin air Iraqi WMD as a pretext for a full-scale invasion of Iraq is not likely to be deterred from attacking Syria by some purely 'liberal hang up' like the truth. A US attack on Syria is on the cards. It's part of the Vietnam syndrome.

And the fourth similarity with Vietnam, of course, is the Local Forces Will Soon Take Over promise. In Vietnam, Nixon bought years of relative American quiescence with that line; and when US forces withdrew from the country in defeat, the Administration's figleaf was that the South Vietnamese army was now ready to deal with the North on its own.

It wasn't, of course, not remotely. But even the most casual follower of Iraq's bloody trek down the road to anarchy, civil war and partition is aware that, ever since the US invasion, that has been Mr Bush's rationale for staying: 'until the Iraqis can defend themselves'.

When the time comes for the American legions to be withdrawn in defeat from Iraq, you can be sure the same gung-ho assessment will issue from the White House: Iraq is now ready to defend itself.
The criminal reality is that, by then, there will be no Iraq left to defend.

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