It's compare-and-contrast time.
Despite roughly $25 billion worth of American training and equipment over the past 10 years and far more from the Iraqi treasury ... the pattern of corruption and patronage in the Iraqi government forces threatens to undermine a new American-led effort to drive out the extremists, even as President Obama is doubling to 3,000 the number of American troops in Iraq.
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Corruption played a significant role in thwarting American objectives in Vietnam by contributing to the South Vietnam government's lack of legitimacy. The heavy handed and corrupt government of South Vietnam actually made the countryside fertile for the insurgency of the Viet Cong and the communists. Successive governments left much to be desired and too readily turned a blind eye to corruption and incompetence.
The comparisons are easy. But the contrasts? Aside from Iraq's majority Shiite population being ideologically immunized from the ISIS insurgency through violent sectarianism--unlike the South Vietnamese peasantry's embrace of invading and indigenous antigovernment forces--the contrasts are damn near invisible. What we have is just another client state more interested in personal enrichment than national defense; and another round of American treasure and, potentially, American blood being poured into it.
GlobalSecurity.org remarks that "Corruption was (and is) endemic throughout the developing world and ... to have expected South Vietnam to be an exception was perhaps unrealistic." The next round will always be different, won't it.