it occurs to me that bush's sudden conversion that i wrote about yesterday--from rejecting the vietnam analogy to embracing it--is really just another form of the quagmire switcheroo that i've written about before.
as i noted in those earlier posts, pro-war types used to reject the warnings that iraq would turn out to be a quagmire. but now they argue "we can't leave iraq!" which is the very definition of a "quagmire." just as the pro-war people have gone from rejecting the quagmire charge to embracing it, it's only natural that they would eventually embrace the vietnam analogy. vietnam was the elephant in the room back when pro-war people were rejecting the quagmire charge. and when bush said that the conflict isn't vietnam over the past few years, that was really another way of claiming that we won't be stuck in iraq like we were in vietnam.
but now, with his reasons for going to iraq in tatters, "we're stuck there" is really all he's got left. instead of talking about the good accomplished by going to iraq, these days he often talks about the hypothetical disaster that will happen if we leave. which means we can't leave. which means, clumsy graham green comparisons and pol pot historical errors aside, it is kinda like vietnam after all. at least it is in the quagmire sense.
the vietnam flip-flop and quagmire switcheroo follow naturally from one another.
