The Little Brown Reader

Quagmire is not a metaphor for Vietnam, but has a specific meaning. It is a strategic defeat. The occupier can't declare victory and can't withdraw. It's too early to be certain, but quagmire is becoming an accurate description of the American crisis:

-The occupation forces are stretched thin, forced into non-military roles such as policing and infrastructure repair, which makes them vulnerable to small-scale ambushes. A single suicide bomber could wreak havoc;

-the occupation forces cannot withdraw, for that would mean humiliation and failure;

-nor can the occupation forces expand significantly, not only for political reasons, but because they are bogged down in Afghanistan, Bosnia and many smaller destination spots in the U.S. Empire;

-the original plan for installing a new regime has stalled for reasons never adequately explained. Gen. Garner was forced out, and the Pentagon's favorite government-in-exile led by Ahmed Chalabi is marginalized and quarreling;

-Like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, the imperial mindset is dangerously incapable of understanding its opposition. The Iraqis must be fighting not because they oppose the occupation but because Saddam Hussein is secretly manipulating them from hiding.

-the most dangerous characteristic of quagmires is that there is no way out for the occupiers except through acknowledging the mistake. The longer the denial, the worse the quagmire.

-Opposition parties like the Democrats become sunk in quagmire as well. Some of them can declare "I told you so," but they fear the consequences of an American military withdrawal.

-Often, it takes the military, starting with the soldiers on the ground, to bring the nature of the quagmire to public attention. That may be beginning to happen. Last week, military officials needed military escorts to escape "seething spouses" at a military base in Georgia. (NYT, July 4)