Bush: Iraq = Vietnam may be Valid

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, George Bush acknowledged that Tom Friedman's comparison of the events in Iraq and the Tet Offensive "could be right."

Unfortunately, I think the events in Iraq have more in common with the 'Bleeding Kansas' period leading up to the American Civil War.

Opposing factions, common territory, and guerrilla warfare - Kansas then and Iraq now.

Of course, Iraq may have moved beyond the 'skirmish' period before a full fledged civil war. Reuters reports that a Sunni Emirate with Sharia law has been declared in part of Iraq.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Dozens of al Qaeda-linked gunmen took to the streets of Ramadi on Wednesday in a show of force to announce the city was joining an Islamic state comprising Iraq's mostly Sunni Arab provinces, Islamists and witnesses said.

Witnesses in Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, said gunmen dressed in white marched through the city as mosque loudspeakers broadcast the statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, a Sunni militant group led by al Qaeda in Iraq.

"We are from Mujahideen Shura Council and our Amir (Prince) is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. God willing we will set the law of Sharia here and we will fight the Americans," said a man who identified himself as Abu Harith, a Mujahideen field leader.

"We have announced the Islamic state. Ramadi is part of it. Our state will comprise all the Sunni provinces of Iraq," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

This won't help Dick Cheney convince the American public (or Iraqis or the world) that the Government in Iraq is doing "remarkably well."

Two thirds of Americans already believe that Iraq is in the middle of a civil war.

Republicans don't want to lose their jobs over a bungled war and thousands of deaths so John Tester has formulated a secret plan for victory. Americans are dying right now in Iraq but you have to re-elect Tester to get him to actually use the plan to, you know, start winning.

War in Iraq Civil War George W. Bush Vietnam