The Missing Ingredient

Our losses this month are higher and could be one of the worst months for casualties in the insurgency period.

Are we experiencing a Tet moment when enemy attacks lead us to conclude the Iraq War is lost?

Clearly not. I don't need to even go into combat intensity to conclude this.

In 1968, the press was reporting our military's success in our fight, so the fact that the enemy could mount a large coordinated offensive despite the appearance ov winning--even an offensive that was decisively smashed--could be portayed as a shocking reversal of the conventional wisdom.

Today, the press portrays Iraq as an ongoing and worsening disaster. So how could our people be shocked by any enemy attack inside Iraq? If we had a press corps that acted like it had any interest at all in our victory, perhaps an al-Tet offensive could crumble our morale. But we don't have that press corps.

Really, we are more likely to see a reverse Tet after the enemy is subdued in Iraq and the Left wonders how we won when everyone in the press told them the war was doomed and lost.

UPDATE: John Keegan provides the slap down on Tet comparisons. Although unfortunately he fails to see the extemely limited way that President Bush compared Tet to today. (The enemy wants to influence our domestic politics. Although in the actual 1968 Tet the enemy tried to win militarily and only recognized their victory on the domestic front later.)