Thank you for leaving what I consider a controversial post. I agree with Tom Odom's comments. As much as I wish we decisively defeated N. Korea, the political situation was not in favor of escalating a land war in Asia. As a democracy, political consideration is paramount in war decision making. Public support waned for the Korean War after stalemate persisted beginning in the spring of '51. Our war-weary citizens would not have stood for a large war in Asia only six years after WWII peace was concluded.

Vietnam was a reaction to a number of different things, including Kennedy's impotence regarding the construction of the Berlin Wall and the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation. Mao's Revolutionary War concept also resonated outside China, with its implementation by Ho Chi Minh and Giap during the war in Indochina.

Losing a war is not necessarily detrimonious to a superpower. Hell, the Brits lost during the "Great Game" in Central Asia but it hardly affected their power. The "win" in the Boer War was less than decisive. The Russians may have lost the Russo-Japanese War, but they continued to influence world affairs for the next 100 years.

What is necessary to remember is losing in Iraq is not the end of the world for the U.S. I feel it might actually suit our strategic goals. The first, keeping extremists divided and fighting amongst themselves in a country far away from our own, siphoning their energy. Two, if the situation escalated into a regional war, Syria and Iran would have to engage. Their involvement would aid our goals-weakening their state governments through fiscal and human loss. Third, if chaos broke out in the Middle East, might the U.S. not have a reason to intervene in the region to "protect our interests?" Our interests would be oil fields and oil production. Who knows where we might cordon off and control.

Real politik is not naivete; it is based on fact and a sense of what public support for military operations might be.