How're Vietnam and Iraq Alike?

How're Vietnam and Iraq Alike?

John O'Sullivan on Iraq on National Review Online

When Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz described some of these developments in a very balanced briefing last week, it was Tet all over again. Media reports virtually ignored the good news and concentrated heavily on his frank admissions the Pentagon had made mistaken assumptions about such matters as Iraqi defections and the likely strength of the resistance after Saddam's defeat. Suddenly, past Pentagon errors were not "old news" — they were new news, whereas signs of a current Iraqi recovery were no news at all. If getting a true picture of the current Iraqi situation out to the American people was his intention, Wolfowitz might as well have saved his breath to cool his porridge. . . .

In other words, we are at a moment like the Tet offensive. The actual situation in Iraq is unstable but improving, but the mainstream media has a vested intellectual interest in depicting it as a yawning quagmire. This time we had better make sure that, whatever decision we make, it is based on the reality on the ground and not on the prejudices of the messenger.