Hold that "quagmire"
It must be something to do with the general spread of attention deficit disorder, for although this war's not a fortnight old, commentators are already comparing President Bush's buying into the neocon vision of an Iraq invasion transforming 
the Middle East to Lyndon Johnson's acceptance of Robert McNamara's plan for increased engagement in South East Asia. In other words, get ready for Vietnam II, they warn (hope?). The ever-excellent Michael Tomasky, writing in The American Prospect, says that Iraq's "No Nam", but while he feels that the war may be ill-advised, he thinks the "quagmire" word is inappropriate:
"Vietnam became a quagmire after about three and a half years. This war, even with the Iraqis displaying a stiffer upper lip we'd been led to believe they would — and even with the prospect of house-to-house combat in Baghdad — is very unlikely to take more than three and a half months. (If it somehow should, I'd venture that George W. Bush will be in deep political trouble.) Besides which, one should not have opposed the Vietnam War because it became a quagmire. One should have opposed the 1965 escalation, if not the 1961 mini-escalation in the number of 'advisers,' on principle. Now, as then, concerns about a 'quagmire' reflect a response to circumstances — is the war going poorly or well? — rather than an expression of principled belief."
For Tomasky, the real "quagmire" is the White House's relationship with the rest of the world and, taking the longer view, he sees the payback coming in November 2004:
"Diplomacy is this administration's real quagmire. The hawks managed to crash their way through the china shop once, when a) the arguments against the bad guy were clear as water and b) the likelihood of a relatively short war was equally clear. Will American public opinion endorse new rounds of belligerence and unilateralism even as other nations are finding ways to strike back at us? This question is far more likely to be in play in the fall of 2004 than in Iraq, and it's far less likely to benefit the incumbent than today's conventional wisdom would hold. "
Diarist of the day: Woodrow Wyatt, 31 March 1991"The Duchess of York is having an affair with a young man, the rich son of a rich American family. He is the one who, with his mother, got into the Royal Box at Ascot because the though they were inviting Verushka [Wyatt's wife] and myself. The Duchess of York was there on that occasion and no doubt took the opportunity to get friendly with him."
