PRESIDENT BUSH MADE another glaring mistake this week. He compared Iraq to Vietnam. Mind you, he'd been denying the analogy for nearly three years now.

He changed his tactics for one reason. We left South Vietnam, our allies, to either die or face re-education in a Communist system.

But if Mr. Bush wants to win the hearts and minds of Americans, it's the wrong analogy.

Granted, I'm a little prejudiced here after reading Robert Dallek's book Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power. Dallek lambastes the Nixon White House for the bombings in Cambodia and the foot-dragging on ending the war purely for, in Dallek's eyes, Nixon's political and paranoid, personal reasons.

Dallek is no fan of this Bush Administration either. In television interviews, he compares the debacle of Vietnam to Iraq. Many American soldiers and Vietnamese died for an additional four or five years after Nixon promised to end the war. In addition, after Vietnam fell there was no domino effect in Asia, as we had promised.

Can we say the same of Iraq? There certainly will be more Americans dying in Iraq since we will be there for another five to ten years. (That's my guess.) But in Iraq, there will be a domino effect. No, there won't be a wave of states turning to a radical form of Islam. Nope, they will be turning off the oil spigot.

Vietnam had no oil. Iraq and its neighboring countries—which could be embroiled in a regional war—have plenty of oil to keep our economy going.

As I've mentioned in previous postings, Iraq today is more like Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s when we backed and armed Mujahadeen fighters like Osama bin Laden. We saw it again during the past two weeks. American military armaments have been sold to Saudi Arabia and to Israel—weapons we could see used against us (not by Israel) in years and decades to come if, for example, Saudi Arabia, is toppled by extremists.

Furthermore, if President Bush is working on his historical narrative, then I think he might have taken the wrong path with Vietnam.

Truth: The No BS Guide To Navigating A Media-Bias World by John Daly at www.johndaly.tv.