AIMED AT THE Muslim holiday of Ramadan, the series of suicide bombings and other attacks by enemies of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq this week probably is intended to have the same effect as the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam: to convince Americans that their troops are committed to a losing cause and must withdraw -- even if, in military terms, that is not the case. Saddam Hussein, after all, is known to have studied recent U.S. history for examples of how to defeat the superpower, as have the Islamic terrorist groups also believed to be operating in Iraq. The attacks so far carried out in Baghdad and Fallujah, like those of Tet, pose no strategic threat to the U.S. military presence in the country; they also pale beside those of 1968, which cost the lives of more than 3,800 U.S. servicemen and 14,000 Vietnamese civilians. Still, the bombings have shocked Iraqis, intimidated some would-be allies and strengthened doubts in Congress and the public about the Iraq mission.
Yet it would be wrong for the United States to conclude, as its enemies no doubt hope it will, that the time has come to embrace an exit strategy. There is no basis to believe that the U.S. goals of stabilizing Iraq under a representative government cannot be achieved. In much of the country there is little violence and coalition authorities have the support of most of the population. Even in Baghdad, there has been measurable progress in recent months: More power is on, the curfew is lifted, streets and shops are usually full. Most important, the coalition authority and most Iraqis share the same goal: to transfer authority to a sovereign government and replace U.S. forces with Iraqis as quickly as can be done safely. The enemy offers not an attractive alternative but an agenda of viciousness embodied in the attacks on the humanitarian workers of the United Nations and International Red Cross. This is the brutal trademark of al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein, whose return on the heels of departing U.S. troops is the future Iraqis fear most.
