BriefingMiddle East & North Africa

The Real Significance of the Tet Offensive for Iraq

The Real Significance of the Tet Offensive for Iraq

The analogy between the recent violence in Iraq and the Tet Offensive in Vietnam is illustrative, but not for the reasons suggested by Thomas Friedman and the White House.

Friedman's Oct. 18 column in the New York Times suggested that, "while there may be no single hand coordinating the upsurge in violence in Iraq, enough people seem to be deliberately stoking the fires there before our election that the parallel with Tet is not inappropriate."

Friedman's comparison between the recent violence in Iraq and the Tet Offensive is inappropriate for several reasons:

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