There is a particular point at which knowledge appears to end and a huge black hole begins. It seems to occur somewhere in the 1960s. The specific event beyond which most commentators now find it difficult to see is the Vietnam War.

It has become the dominant reference point for discussion of any current military campaign. The war to liberate Afghanistan had barely begun before sceptics were suggesting that a “Vietnam-style quagmire” loomed. And from the moment plans were laid to topple Saddam’s regime, cynics were certain that the Iraq war would lead, if not to Apocalypse Now, then to the quagmire to end all quagmires.

In the past few weeks the number, and weight, of those concluding that the Iraq war has been a foolish adventure has grown. And many of the weightiest, including John Maples, the former Shadow Foreign Secretary, writing on these pages last week, have invoked the long shadow cast by the Vietnam War Memorial. Can we not learn from history, they ask, and recognise we have made another error to rank with that error-strewn conflict in the jungles of South-East Asia?

The demand that we should learn from history makes sense. But, sadly, none of the comparisons so far drawn with Vietnam display a full sense of the nature of that conflict, or the one we face now.

There are key differences between the North Vietnamese and Vietcong assault on South Vietnam and the insurgency being mounted in Iraq. Differences which suggest we face a radically different outcome. In Vietnam the Communist forces were ideologically united, enjoyed broad popular support and were battling against a corrupt status quo with the promise of a radically different, and more hopeful, future.

In Iraq, by contrast, the insurgents are united only in their hatred of the West and dislike of democracy. The most implacable are remnants from Saddam Hussein’s most loyal cadres. They have been joined, in this fight, by other Sunnis who fear that the privileges their minority group once enjoyed will be lost in a future democratic Iraq. And their struggle has been augmented, for tactical reasons, by outside jihadis, from Syria, Jordan and across the Arab world, drawn by the heat of the crucible.

They lack any sort of political unity and offer no coherent programme of hope for Iraq’s people. While they might hanker for the restoration of Sunni minority rule, such a reactionary step could, by definition, never secure majority popular support.

In contrast to insurgents who are either nostalgic for Saddam’s reign or, in the case of the Islamists, dreaming fondly of the restoration of a medieval caliphate, a radically different and more hopeful future looks likely to be embraced by Iraq’s majority. In Iraq, unlike Vietnam, it is the Americans who are offering an escape from the corrupt status quo that prevails in the region. If democracy takes root, then Iraq has a chance to transcend the miseries of arbitrary and autocratic rule which, so sadly, imprison many other Arab peoples.

If the Iraqi elections due to be held in less than two weeks’ time are successful that will give the coalition something the Americans never enjoyed in Vietnam — a clear political victory. The insurgents will have been defeated in their principal aim, the denial of democracy.

The Iraqi leaders most likely to emerge in pole position after the vote, such as the United Iraqi Alliance, have already made it clear that they will offer Sunnis senior positions in any new government. After 80 years during which they have been shut out of secular power the Shia leadership have no desire to assume their proper share in the control of Iraq, only to see the nation they inherit immediately fracture.

There are, certainly, dangers ahead. But they lie, as so often in the Middle East, in erring on the side of the status quo. The coalition undoubtedly made mistakes in committing too few troops initially, in not allowing Iraqis themselves, especially exiles, a key role in the liberation of their own country and in not moving quickly enough to full Iraqi rule. But those errors were driven more than anything by sensitivity to reigning Arab establishment, especially Saudi, opinion.

The preference for speed over mass in the initial assault, and the reluctance to deploy trained Iraqi exiles in the process of liberation, reflected the wish among Arab elites for a quick war and the minimum level of democratic transformation. We can now see that deference to those wishes has impeded the work of building a new Iraq. For many of Iraq’s neighbours the emergence of democracy on their doorstep is a threat, as the vigorous support given to the insurgency by Syria makes clear. Efforts to keep Damascus and Riyadh happy only undermine the promise of greater freedom which a new Iraq could herald.

Following on, as it does, from the highly successful elections held in Afghanistan, the vote in Iraq will be one of the most significant events in the Middle East since, or even before, the Sixties. From the time of Nasser the Arab peoples have been sold a succession of strongmen as the answer to their plight. And they have seen their region suffer as a result. Now, at last, they have the chance to become proper masters of their own destiny. The next two weeks will be tough. But Iraqis can now glimpse, just over the horizon, an event that could transform their outlook. And help them to escape from the black hole of mass graves and devastated lives that Saddam dug for them.

michael.gove@thetimes.co.uk

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