Spot on, Mr. Shawcross. The enemies that Iraq and the coalition face understand full well what is at stake Their extraordinary viciousness shows that.

Meanwhile, in the United States there is the opportunistic left, the clueless left, and the just plain ahistorical clueless in opposition.

Mark Cross, Plymouth, Wisconsin

Not getting to read his column on this side of the Atlantic, I've always wondered how Shawcross was going to rationalize his early support for the war. If the only reason he can give for the invasion is the removal of Saddam, he's on thin ice. The Saddam we overthrew was a brutal dictator, but not the same thing as Pol Pot's fanatical regime. If he had been actively engaged in campaigns of mass murder (say, on the scale of the death toll in Chechnya) then we would have had more of a moral imperative. But Saddam in 2003 was not much different from the Saddam who enjoyed open U.S. support in the 1980s.
Unfortunately, we have no better solution for Iraqi than the very bloodbath Shawcross protests. The invasion created this problem, and now Shawcross and his kind want our soldiers to fight on indefinitely to defend them from the consequences of their errors. The pitiable irony is that success in Iraq will probably mean a Shiite theocracy friendlier to Iran than to us.

Mike High, Great Falls, VA, USA

The dirty little secret about too many of the anti Vietnam war protesters is that they didn't care about Viet Nam. They were showing off their superiority to the lower middle class who were fighting that war, and they saw the Vietnamese not as people but as a "pet" to be coddled. So when the killings occured, they joined Jane Fonda in the next big thing, which was exercize.
Ironically, most of the anti war protesters in the US are over age fifty, and trying to relive their youthful glory days.
Even though there are a million Vietnamese in the US, if you notice, the anti war rallies are missing Asian refugees. Indeed, despite large numbers of refugees, they are the invisible group in the discussion of "Iran as Viet Nam".
At least Snowcroson has noticed them

nancy Reyes, Gapan City, Philippines

I heard William Shawcross being interviewed on New Zealand's National Radio by noted liberal interviewer Kim Hill. It was the most breathtakingly eloquent and clear exposition of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq and deposing of Saddam Hussein I have ever heard. Hill is known for her aggressive anti American stance and she threw everything at Shawcross and he cleaned her clock

Jeff McIntyre, Mesa, Arizona,

I owned and read "Sideshow", and recall from it a footnote, that as a student Henry Kissinger compiled the thesis that the reason the United States never had the intention to win in East Asia (the fact long suspected by the ordinary members of the American military), was that the Chinese and the Russians would use nuclear weapons. Similarly in Iraq, the West's hidden stake is its historic oil hegemony: the U.S. President who promoted the Shah as America's oil cop, Jimmy Carter, was a creature of the Standard Oil Rockefeller family. After the fall of the Shah, American oil hegemony installed Sadaam Hussein as its oil cop. (The million man toll of the killing fields of the Iran-Iraq war hardly merits mention.) The horrific carnage of Iraq today is the consequence, not just of the temporary incompetence of the Bush administration, but of the neglect of this region by the Anglo-American Establishment. It is they who have as much to answer for in Iraq, as the American media have in Viet Nam.

William Keevers, Sacramento, USA / California

<i>George Bush won a war, lost a peace and found another war but he was quite right about Saddam.</i>

Won a war, did he?

Could you refer me to when and where the Iraqi military forces surrendered? I missed that somehow.

Who do you think the US is fighting now? A bunch of guys who knock off the corner liquor store? Or professionals?

You tell me, Brain-Trust . . ..

chuck, Martin, Tennessee

And be prepared to read any other country the US moves into. Regardless of any lateral perceptions by people such as Lee Kuan Yew, the fact is undoubted that if the United States could not move it’s forces into, or invade, other countries, it’s policy and the events in these countries, would be very different. It’s a symbiotic relationship. America needs these countries and it needs these occasions. That isn’t theory. It’s the fact of experience. Given this position, it is merely a question of considering where the United States will next impose itself and why. Since the alternative is that they adopt social democratic principles, one can see that endeavouring to find reasons why the US made this or that move in any given context - as you have described in your article - is merely by way of a point of discussion, rather than an attempt to find the proper determination of the particular event. It is the facts that do not enter the public domain that decide these occasions, so debating them in terms of broadly known facts is only ever going to be informal.

Henry Percy, London, UK

Mr. McCloskey:

My neighborhood in Philadelphia became home to many refugees from Cambodia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I wish you could have talked to a few about their experiences, and what happened to their families. The carnage that was the Khmer Rouge had little to do with imperialism and western arrogance.

There can be no excuse for the killing fields. Have you no humanity?

John Oh, Philadelphia, USA

George Bush won a war, lost a peace and found another war but he was quite right about Saddam. Nobody would die for Saddam Hussein and the world would be safer without him. After that he really made a mess of things. Seymour Hersh claims in an article of the New Yorker that Bush is convinced the Almighty wants him to keep fighting the enemy: a political settlement through military means. The Republicans are already in poor shape. Another two years of Iraq will kill them. In 2008 the GOP can only provide an alternate candidate that nobody will take seriously unless Mrs. Clinton fails to win the nomination of the Democrats.

DTL, Cohasset, Ma., USA

What I remember about Cambodia is that Richard Nixon illegally invaded that country in 1970 and started it down the road to the killing fields. GW Bush did the same thing in 2003 and now Iraq is going through its own cycle of slaughter.

Roger Ribert, W Henrietta, NY

Dear, oh dear, Paul McCloskey. Remember the Empire? Don't give me your British sanctimony of knowing what or what is not best for the world.

I'm hoping for some kind of victory in Iraq. You are not and that is sad. South Vietnam did not have the will or the desire to fight for itself. Had it done so, there would today be two Vietnams. I opposed the war in the 70's like any other hippie-type.

And wasn't you British who created Iraq as it is today?

Robert Severin , Jefferson, CO, USA

Point of fact.

US ground forces were withrawn from South Vietnam in 1973. The South Vietnamese army held off Nort Vietnam for 2 years with US air support. A Democrat congress in the US then withdrew air support. The South Vietnamese army was defeated in the spring of 1975. The US embassy staff was evacuated during the fall of Siagon along with some desperate Vietnamese who forced their way onto the evacuation helicopters.

Doug Forbes, Wheeling, USA

If you like gulags, then you like Vietnam. If you like countries in which cell phones are severely restricted, opposition parties are crushed, and even moderate criticism of the ruling elites is hammered, then you love Vietnam. What a reprobate society, one that was oddly out of date in 1975 and one that has no place in the 21st century! Does anyone deny that if South Vietnam had not been conquered in 1975 by massively armed conventional forces from North Vietnam, it would be today to North Vietnam what South Korea is to North Korea, Taiwan is to China, and West Germany was to East Germany. The same is true for Iraq? Of course not. Do you really want to foster reprobate Shraria Law, something right out of the deserts of eastern Saudi Arabia from the seventh century? I don't, either. Let's move on and join the 21st century and leave outdated notions of oppression of ordinary people by self-appointed elites behind us. It's just so yesterday!

James, Jacksonville, Illinois U. S.

One of the unforeseen consequences of a premature US withdrawal from Iraq will be most likely felt in Europe by the very critics who have had nothing good to say about the United States for the past 6 years. America and/or Bush haters must be careful what they wish for. If public pressure succeeds in forcing the U.S. to leave Iraq, western intellectual elites and their media lapdogs will bear the blame. And be certain of this: when the militant islamic extremists decide that western Europe must next be purged of infidels, do not turn to United States for help. Our liberals don't have the stomach for a tough fight. The rest of us? Well, we've paid attention and have watched and listened closely these last 6 years. Those millions of us "optimists" who proudly "wave our flag" will not support wasting our blood and treasure on an arrogant and weak European continent. Get ready to do this on your own.

Marjorie, Columbia, MO, USA

Hey all you foreigners who think the U.S. is the great Satan.
So goes the U.S. so goes the rest of the world.
If the U.S. economy and military is ever severely defeated every tin plated dictator will come out of the wood work to fight for control and there won't be any great "Satan U.S." you can turn to for help and speaking of help next time you guys have a natural disaster ask some other country for aid.
We Americans are sick of your attitude and ungratefulness.

A. Hughes, Stanton, USA, CA

I hope Mr. Milner and Alessandro like Sha'ria law, because their attitudes will assure victory for Islam in Europe. While they hate America and all it stands for, I would encourage them to return to European history circa 1680 and see whether their ancestors were willing to welcome Islam with open arms...or not. I don't think either of these gentlemen has the will or stomach to resist; both would probably rather convert than fight, perhaps to die.
The US wasn't required to intervene in Vietnam in 1954 after the French were humiliated. It did so in the 60s as part of a larger effort against Communist domination of South East Asia. While it may have been a failure, the US was not, as Milner so blithely states, the cause of the killings in Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam.
Spinoneone, Fairfax, VA

Spinoneone, Fairfax, VA

As a man who entered the Marine Corps in 1975, my first purpose was to go to Vietnam because I couldn't imagine the American People being so callous as to disregard the catastrophic consequences of our leaving as we did. Every Marine I knew then, was in for the same purpose, and understood that the "TET Ofensive" was in fact a overwhelming victory for our troops. I lost most of my respect for "the American people" when we did not go back and correct our failure. That a journalist who spent time there and then can learn from history and realise today that he was wrong in his estimations is a testament to his character and honor. Those are two of the very few things human that I have any respect for. That he sees the looming disaster if we allow that "fifth column" here at home to bring about their desire suggests that like any real scholar, he is still learning. I've been a machinist for almost forty years, and I'm still learning, each and every day. I pity those who simply can't

John McClain, Vanceboro, NC USA

The ignorance displayed by the commentators from Spain, Italy, and Japan is extraordinary. One, Maria, makes the deluded statement that the U.S. supplied Saddam with weapons when his artillery, tanks, aircraft, and pre-1991 WMD infrastructure was provided by Germany, Russia (in huge amounts), France, and Italy. The only thing that the U.S. delivered was a little satellite intelligence during the Iran/Iraq war. The Netherlands commentator calls Shawcross a "deluded Westerner." Well, if the demographics continue as they are tending in the Hague, soon he'll be living under Sharia law and, as in 1941, I imagine, reduced to begging the U.S. for deliverance. But, then again, in his dhimminitude he probably doesn't consider himself a "westerner." As for Gino, I wonder if he thought the U.S. should butt out of Italy when it destroyed Fascism and saved his country from falling behind the Iron Curtain. And bin Laden's fan from Japan? It's good to know your enemies.

Jerry, Hawley, United States

Dear, oh dear, Mr Shawcross, remember '75? God yes, that was before the U.S. lost it's marbles completely and went down the road of nationalism in pursuit of honour and duty to it's sacred self. The time before it started eulogising it's fighting men to the status of everyone's a hero mentality. The time before it knew what was right for the world; and sadly a time before you wrote such shallow articles as this one. Keep waving that flag and everything will just keep getting better.

Paul McCloskey, London, England

Thank you for this thoughtful and revealing assessment of the stakes in Iraq. More people need to get past their bias against America and realize that the people who have the most to benefit from "the surge" and the ousting of Saddam are the Iraqi people themselves. I also find it humorous by the comments from Japan and Italy, of all places, lecturing the USA on past mistakes.

Fred, Kansas City, USA

uhmm, you should better have a look in the past,, how U.S supported Saddam,,, even giving him weapons to make all the awful things he made...

Maria, Madrid, Spain

William is a fully respectable and qualified view.
However, in my opinion, suffers from a anchestral optimism pervading the Western history. That is, once (we) have conquered democracy in thousand years, we can infuse it to the whole world. The road to our peace is running across graveyards, wars, persecution, and hate. And dozens of mercyless tyrants.
Should we refrain from illuding ourselves that there is any shortcut to avoid others suffering our pain? I think so.
South-East Asia as well as Iraq is no 'shoe-sha' (the post WWII icon of the relationship between the freedom bringing soldier and the poor enjoing a new life).
We should defend our values but cease trying to convince the others to come on board, even if they are not willing to.
And protecting our interests could well be cruel and necessary; but should not be misstaken as an act of phylantropy.

Gino, Milano

Gino , Milano, Italia

Thank you, Mr. Shawcross, for your useful perspective.

I am aghast at the three naive comments from the Netherlands, Italy, and Japan. Only severe cognitive dissonance or incredible cynicism can explain their responses.

Yes, the US has woken up to the fact that force alone leaves one as a strong man with but one leg for support. Yet I wonder when the European world will wake up to the fact that you cannot "negotiate" with Sharia Law; you can only "submit" to it, or fight its imposition to maintain your own freedom. There are no negotiations with Al Queda and radical Islam.

A. Craigs, Virginia, USA

william shawcross is a deluded westerner

gabriel, hague, netherlands

The war in Iraq was wrong from the beginning. It does not seem to me that Bush began the war in order to overthrow Saddam (I am talking about the official U.S. reasons...) but he wanted to convince us that Iraq had dangerous nuclear weapons. However, I would like to be pragmatic and the solution to find the exit is that the protagonists of the war (Us and Uk, of course) should step aside telling they are no longer able to manage the situation in order to avoid another failure after the Indochina war. Just doing so, the U.N. can intervene. U.S. has no credibility in Iraq now.

Alessandro, Rome, Italy

Like Iraq, the US has direct culpability for the overall disaster the Viet Nam War (American War) created. To say the US did not directly kill Cambodians begs the question of responsibility. Conjecture that if the US had not interfered where it had no business, there would have been no Pol Pot and no Killing Fields. Listen to what Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson) has to say on Viet Nam: "The entire Viet Nam War was unnecessary and the result of a compound misunderstanding." Not much comfort to the 5.5 million souls in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia that died as a result of American ineptitude and lack of awareness of the historical process. Allowing Viet Nam to be reunited (which the US would have agreed to on Day 1) would not have let the Chinese in. Viet Nam has been fighting the Chinese for 1,000 years. The irony was that both sides thought they were fighting for freedom. OBL was right, America really is the great Satan. Not a fan, you can tell.

Andrew Milner, Yokohama, Japan

It is amazing to notice that 30 years after one of the greatest military and diplomatic catastrophe both in Vietnam and Cambodia resulting in communist regimes in both countries mr Shawcross uses these examples as a benchmark for the US policy in Iraq. The US lost the war in Vietnam and Cambodia it has gained nothing from its involvement in Indo-China and the same scenario is taking place in Iraq. The US has basically conducted a false war based on false claims and again as in Vietnam it is up to its neck in a war that it is losing .The US had opened a Pandora box that it should not have opened and now it can not even find its cover not to mention the knowledge how to close the box. Iraq has never been a united country- it is a country that was put together and rulled by an iron fist by anyone of its rullers .Thus it seems that the only political solution would be an internal one which will be probably result in another dictator but at least the price would be cheaper for the sides involved in Iraq.

David Shulman, Tel Aviv,

You are totally right. Unfortunately, few who understand you you know how to blog and most of those who know how to respond to these reply-pages and have got into the habit have no sense of history. There is "BG" (before Gates) and "AG" . When the BG generation passes on, will there be any history left? My contempt is reserved for the "liberal" London intelligentsia who have conveniently forgotten how they supported communism for decades. Not one to my knowledge publicly apologised - when the Berlin Wall fell - for morally corrupting a generation.

Len, Motueka, NZ

I don't think any eastern Cambodians that are old enough will ever thank the US for the B cinquant-deux. Cambodians aren't lining up to thank the US for cooperating with the Khmer Rouge in return for its opposition to Vietnam. I also didn't hear praise for Colin Powell's visit to Phnom Penh (offering millions of US$ to Cambodia for voting out Hun Sen) which resulted in no government in Cambodia for months.
The US interferes only when it is in its own interests. Its involvement in Cambodia never was, and never will be about helping Cambodians. And its Iraq policy was never about the Iraqis; it's about oil, the placement of US forces in the Middle East, and huge profits for US war corporations at the expense of the taxpayer.
Civil war is the inevitable consequence of removing Saddam, as those peoples currently called Iraqis do not share enough in common values to call themselves a single nation. President Putin was right when he advised Bush that you cannot export democracy.

Mark, Hong Kong,

I was vehemently opposed to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many Iraqis would prefer Saddam still being in power to the last couple of years. However, we are where we are. I'm in Baghdad and there is now a sense that things might be turning around. It's very early days but the security clampdown is paying some dividends and by no means are all the troops even here yet. A hydrocarbon law has finally gone to Parliament and that could help things further. There have been some disgraceful incidents involving US and UK military in the past but these, while unforgivable, are isolated. The vast majority of servicemen are doing a great job under difficult circumstances and for little thanks if any. I think Bush and Blair should be strung up for their deceit but we should all be supporting the efforts that are being made now and which finally seem to have potential. It's ironic that this surge is the first thing Bush has got right but it's the very thing which so many seek to undermine.

Steve, Baghdad, Iraq

Strip away the arguments about which Muslim faction is visiting horrors on which other Muslim faction and we're left with the view that ".. there was no hope of progress in the region." carries the implied meaning that progress will have been achieved when brown people meekly accept having their land stolen by white people.

We should remember that our ideas about what constitutes "progress" in the region is determined almost entirely by the view that Muslims should meekly accept having their land nicked from them by Israel, and that once such acceptance has been gained real "progress" will have been made.

It's rather like believing that a person mugged by a hoodie should grow up and accept that the hoodie has a right to the contents of their wallet, and we're ready to use force to defend that right.

Progress in the region will be achieved when we in the West realise that we shouldn't side with thieves.

John Small, Faversham , UK

If William Shawcross believs that sectarian, fanatic, bloodthirsty Iraq is better than Sadams stupid embicile regime, then he has no understanding about the differences of Middle East and South-East Asian cultures.

david, gori, georgia

For those who, like myself, were looking at the events in Indochina from the other part of the Iron Screen, this point of view is all too obvious. Now living in the West I feel a great shame and despair when listening for the endless barrage of self-hatred and defeatism propagated by the liberal media. The result of American defeat in Iraq will be the same as in Vietnam - more corpses. Of course, many people in the West think that as long as it is not our corpses, it does not matter (after all who ever mentions that, for instance, communists in China killed about 70 million people). But it is a globalized world now where distances do not exist. So the corpses may be ours after all.

Alexei, Stony Brook, USA

Didn't the US recognise the khmer rouge as legitimate and the UK and US supply training and mines, was it not Vietnam who saved the Cambodians? . Did the US not support Sadam and supply the equipment needed to gas the kurds?

John, jakarta,

You seem to have learned Mr. Shawcross. Good. Write more often. If the anti-american media will print you.

George Steiner, Lachine, Quebec, Cnada