…We either need long-term commitments, effective long-term resources and strategic patience — or we do not need enemies. We will defeat ourselves.

Obviously Cordesman is aware of the comparison with Vietnam. Perhaps he keeps it unsaid because of the readership he is trying to persuade.

The most serious problems, however, are governance and development. Both countries face critical internal divisions and levels of poverty and unemployment that will require patience. These troubles can be worked out, but only over a period of years. Both central governments are corrupt and ineffective, and they cannot bring development and services without years of additional aid at far higher levels than the Bush administration now budgets…

My bad feeling is that Bush’s strategy for the war’s critical nonmilitary dimensions differs little from Obamaesque wishful thinking.

I’m not entirely comfortable with Cordesman’s reference to ‘wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan: IMO these countries are better be described as theaters of an encompassing war. In fact, because of the nonmilitary dimensions, the term ‘war’ might be inadequate, but a better one does not come to mind.