More Echoes of Vietnam

The word is that more and more people think that Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, must be removed.

We've been down this road before, engineering the removal of a national leader in a country where our troops were fighting to put down a guerrilla war. And it didn't work out so well. Ho Chi Mihn is reputed to have said that he could not believe that the Americans would have been so stupid.

History is repeating itself, it seems, but with even worse possible consequences. Like it or not, unlike Ngo Diem, al-Maliki is an elected leader, elected pursuant to a constitution that America had a large hand in drafting. If it appears that America is behind his removal from power, it will show to the rest of the world that the American commitment to democracy is as durable as a contract written on flash paper.

But given the Bush Administration's actions in our own elections, that should not come as any great surprise to the sentient.