Tet Redux? Only In the American Media

On October 18 President Bush said that the recent rise in American casualties in Iraq could be compared to the casualties suffered during the Tet offensive in early 1968 in Vietnam. While such a comparison will bring joy to all those who have longed to relive the antiwar protests of the late 1960s, it was unnecessary and mostly inaccurate.

It was unnecessary and mostly wrong because Iraq is not Vietnam. Vietnam was a war fought between two armies. I am not sure Iraq is even a good insurgency. It seems to mostly be just a bunch of gangs and private militias out to kill whoever and whenever.

If there is any similarity between Vietnam and Iraq it is how much of each of them was and is being fought in the American media. But Tet itself was not aimed at the U.S. media. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong really thought Tet would succeed militarily. They thought it would set off uprisings throughout South Vietnam and they would win the war. Their victory in the U.S. media, while they were losing on the battlefield, was mostly dumb luck, not good planning.

In this way, Iraq is different than Vietnam because much of the violence occurring in Iraq is aimed precisely at influencing the U.S. media and, through the U.S. media, the American elections. Al-Qaeda has spoken of the important role the U.S. media can play in its plans. Others realize the same thing. To not understand that much of the current increase in violence in Iraq is more about affecting the U.S. elections than about the security situation in Iraq is both naiveté and wrong.