GraniteGrok

No, not the types of troops.  Not the types of tactics by our troops.  Not the terrain.  Not the people.  And not the ideology of the opposing side.

Sure seems like our opponents learned a lot from our disasterous results of "ending the war" in Vietnam.  When one doesn't win, when the other side does not give up, you have surrendered and lost.  Doug wrote about THE tactic employed by North Vietnam General Giap here; use propaganda more effectively in an asymmetrical information war.  He knew that militarily he could not defeat the US but he also knew that if he could turn the tide internally in the US against the war, he would win.  And did.

So, involved in another asymmetrical war where once again our foes have played to the pacifist side of the US (and aided in no small amount by Bush Derangement Syndrome), why was I not surprised to see this touting their own horn as one of our President-elect's main messages has been "I will end this war":

Jihadi Leader Says Radicals Share Obama Victory

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The leader of a jihadi group in Iraq argued Friday that the election of Barack Obama as president represented a victory for radical Islamic groups that had battled American forces since the invasion of Iraq.

The statement, which experts said was part of the psychological duel with the United States, was included in a 25-minute audiotaped speech by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization that claims ties to Al Qaeda. Mr. Baghdadi’s statement was posted on a password-protected Web site called Al Hesbah, used to disseminate information to Islamic radicals.

In his address, Mr. Baghdadi also said that the election of Mr. Obama — and the rejection of the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain — was a victory for his movement, a claim that has already begun to resonate among the radical faithful. In so doing Mr. Baghdadi highlighted the challenge the new president would face as he weighed how to remove troops from Iraq without also giving movements like Al Qaeda a powerful propaganda tool to use for recruiting.

This is why if you do not win, you lose.  As the only superpower in the world, it shows up the only weakness in our capability -> our political will.  Our political unwillingness (and that would be the ONLY reason to not succeed), so close to establishing a self-sustaining Iraq, to see the mission to its completion, will be shown to have been exploited.

“It would be no exaggeration to say that we Arabs and Muslims were the main unseen voters who decided the outcome of these elections,” wrote Abdelbari Atwan in Wednesday’s issue of the London-based pan-Arab daily newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.

He wrote, “The transformation that will begin in the U.S. starting today in various political, economic, military, and social domains may well have been delayed for decades, had the new American century been crowned with victory, and had the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan taken the directions sought by the neo-cons — in other words, had there been political stability and economic prosperity, and had the citizens of the two countries targeted by the U.S.’s designs been totally subjugated by it.”

I'll agree to the political stability and economic prosperity part of that last paragraph - our initial tactics and strategies were wrong and only after General Petraeus took over did things start to go in the right direction.  However, the subjugation part?  I think a tad overblown and wrong...

“On behalf of my brothers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Chechnya, I offer you what is better for you and us: you return to your previous era of neutrality, you withdraw your forces, and you return to your homes,” Mr. Baghdadi said. “You do not interfere in the affairs of our countries, directly or indirectly. We in turn will not prevent commerce with you, whether it is in oil or otherwise, but with fairness, not at a loss.”

A hudna - and I'm hoping that Obama knows what that is.  If the war is "ended" as it was in Vietnam, we will have lost and I expect similar results flowing from it.