Smoke rises after a mortar attack as U.S helicopters fly on March 27, 2008 at the Green Zone area in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Muhannad Fala’ah /Getty Images)
by Frank James
Even as President Bush tries to get the nation today to focus on progress that’s been made in Iraq, the images coming out of Iraq in recent days are a stark counterpoint to his message. Many Americans won’t be able to hear him because the images speak so loudly and don’t bear much resemblance to progress.
Today, the Green Zone in Baghdad where the U.S. has its embassy and the Iraqi government is based, came under serious attack for yet another day this week. The attacks this week, which appear to come from a Shiite area, have killed at least one U.S. civilian and injured other Americans, including military personnel, and Iraqis.
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Meanwhile, the violent clashes between rival Shiite forces continued in the nation’s south as Iraqi government forces tried to rein in well-armed elements of the Mahdi Army, fighters loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The violence in and around Basra included the bombing of an important oil pipeline which caused the price of oil futures to jump in world markets.
Bush may have something of a Tet Offensive problem on his hands. During Vietnam, the Tet Offensive, which occured from January through September 1968 when North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong combined to launch military operations throughout South Vietnam.
The U.S. military and South Vietnam forces successfully beat back the communists. But the images of grueling fighting, particularly by U.S. troops in Hue and Khe Sanh, helped to sour American public opinion, once and for all, against the Vietnam war.
Iraqis march during a massive protest in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 27, 2008, demanding the prime minister resign because if his crackdown on al-Sadr’s militiamen. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) Whether the public’s support for continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, which rose because of reports of progress related to to the U.S. military surge, will take a similar hit, remains to be seen.
But the current upswell in violence is hard to explain away as just another bump in the long and rocky road that has come to describe the U.S.’s experience in Iraq. And we’ve seen what such images as those we’re seeing now have done to the American public’s stomach for war in the past.