"The more evident it becomes that the occupying troops are controlling neither the capital nor the country, the more likely it is that American hopes in the Iraqi desert will be dashed and that the Americans will one day leave the country, just as they had to leave Vietnam...
"For the time being, the Americans are trapped in Iraq. They can't defeat the enemy, they can't raise the necessary money, they can't protect themselves or the locals - but they can't run away a few months after the invasion either... President George Bush has let himself be led by his Iraqi obsession. This obsession has deeply disturbed the relationship between the west and the Islamic countries in the long term. It is impossible to see how Mr Bush can get out of the snare he has set himself."
Al-Ahram
Editorial, Egypt, October 29
"The question is, with the rising number of deaths in Iraq, will the American public be still satisfied to pay the bill for a war that compelling evidence has proved totally unjustified? Intensified Iraqi resistance makes it plain that the Iraqis will not accept an American occupation.
"As leader of the free world, Washington should be true to form; it should give way to the dictates of democracy, freedom and independence by handing over authority to the Iraqis and by including the UN in the running of Iraq's affairs until a national government is elected. This America should do if only to avoid a repeat of the Vietnam scenario."
Max Hastings
Daily Mail, October 28
"If the allies do not capture Saddam Hussein, if the hideously destabilising routine of bombs and deaths, political stagnation and suicide bombing continues, then things could get dramatically worse. The US could seriously consider... quitting Iraq.
"We have scarcely yet seen the beginning of this saga of sand, blood and American presidential politics. Way back in the stone age of 1967, at the height of the Vietnam war, Pete Seeger used to sing a passionate anti-Lyndon Johnson ditty, which became one of the anthems of the anti-war movement: 'We're waist-deep in the Big Muddy, but the big fool says to push on.' Mr Bush is today at least knee-deep in the Big Muddy."
Thomas L Friedman
New York Times, October 30
"There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press and the anti-war left that 'Iraq' is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to 'liberate' their country from 'US occupation'. These attackers are the Iraqi Vietcong. Hogwash... They are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge - a murderous band of Saddam loyalists and al-Qaida nihilists, who are not killing us so Iraqis can rule themselves. They are killing us so they can rule Iraqis...
"What the people who blew up the Red Cross and the Iraqi police fear... is that we're going to permanently change Iraq... They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the US has ever launched - a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world."
Richard Cohen
Washington Post, October 30
"While the similarities with Vietnam are always worth noting, the differences may be more important. Among them is the nature of the insurgency. The Vietnamese independence movement was both long-standing and widespread... That cannot be said about whoever is behind the Iraq terrorist attacks - bitter-end Ba'athists or Islamic zealots taking a shortcut to heaven. Neither embodies Iraqi national aspirations...
"In a way, Vietnam was not 'Vietnam' either. The communist victory did not precipitate a falling of dominoes all across Asia. In fact, it hardly mattered... [Iraq] is much more important... If there is anything to the latter-day domino theory that the Bush administration propounded - a democratic Iraq would be emulated throughout the Middle East - then its converse must also be true: the failure to establish some sort of civic regime in Iraq would also have consequences throughout the Middle East...
"Finally, where Iraq is really different from Vietnam: there can be no premature, chaotic and shameful withdrawal. In the end, Vietnam didn't matter. Iraq does."
Ralph Peters
New York Post, October 29
"Iraq another Vietnam? Hell, even Vietnam wasn't the Vietnam of leftwing baby-talk politics and campus political astrology... There is only one way in which the situation in Iraq resembles Vietnam: our enemies realise that they can't win militarily. This is a contest of wills much more than a contest of weapons. The terrorists intend to wear us down.
"Our enemies are employing media-genic bombings to leap over our soldiers and influence our political leaders and our elections - just as the Vietnamese did. The suicide bombers themselves are deluded madmen, but the men behind the terror campaign calculate that, if they can just maintain a sufficient level of camera-friendly attacks, our military successes and all the progress of our reconstruction efforts will be eclipsed by a mood of dejection in Washington. If the terrorists turn out to be right, the butcher's bill in the coming years and decades will be vastly higher than the casualty count in Iraq."