There has been a lot of people saying that Iraq is another Vietnam. But it strikes me that there is a giant difference between the two.
North Vietnam had the backing of two other superpowers, Russia and China. And they had their own country to base from.
The insurgents in Iraq get surreptitious funding from individuals and some small governments (like Iran). And they get some hidden help again from small countries.
But they have no superpower on their side. They don't even have a single country that is openly backing them. They are on their own. And I cannot think of a single instance where insurgents battling a superpower were able to win without the backing of a competing superpower.
I went back 200 years and even then the U.S. won the Revolutionary War because France openly supported us. So maybe there is a case where a truly local insurgency has beat a superpower - but I don't think so.
And that makes Iraq very different from Vietnam.
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