A "Tet Offensive" in Iraq

[Culpeper]

No offense and politics aside, but Tet was a part of a greater scheme for North Vietnam. Deliver a crushing attack against The South, get the population to rise up, and bring in conventional warfare to reunify Vietnam, which they eventually were able to accomplish much later due to a poor South Vietnamese President ordering South Vietnamese forces out of defensive position and out in the open to be decimated. What North Vietnam accomplished during Tet was a failure. The Viet Cong was decimated. From that point forward their ranks were filled to the brim with NVA cadre, which didn't contribute much in the form of the type of warfare that eventually crushed South Vietnam. Using the Tet Offensive as a model for success is ironic considering North Vietnam calculated it as a humiliating defeat that would take time and effort to recover from, which is exactly what unfolded as a result.

AQI doesn't come close to the infrastructure of North Vietnam's ability to fight both as a guerrilla presence and a standing conventional force poised for the final conventional victory. A Tet action would result in a defeat for AQI. In fact, it would be a blessing in disguise for counterinsurgency if they would come out in the open to be decimated, which is what usually happens when they go on the offensive in large number. At least, numbers that "they" consider large. How many Viet Cong and NVA were wiped out by the end of Tet? How many Viet Cong and NVA were directly involved in the fighting during Tet? It would be almost an insult to the Vietnamese Communists to compare what they organized and orchestrated during Tet to the haphazardly organized AQI in comaprison. About all AQI can do is create instability in certain regions for a given amount of time. "Not losing" no longer applies just for the insurgents. It now also applies to the counterinsurgent as well.