The search for a central axis for the entropic spiral of current American foreign policy leads to the Vietnam War. It was Vietnam that formed the ideologies of Bush, Rove, and the NeoCons. Men as different as Alito and Bolton consistently refer to their sense of isolation during the Vietnam era. Young American authoritarians were deeply frustrated by what they viewed as an avoidable military defeat in Vietnam. George Bush, Jr. was one of them.
Just as WWII was the inevitable consequence of the folly of WWI. The Iraq war has been the consequence of America's failure to accept defeat in Vietnam. Let's look at the linkages.
Because America was not defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam, a generation of American leaders came to believe that a more vigorously prosecuted war would have brought victory in Vietnam. There is no evidence that this is true, since Vietnam was one of many lost neo-colonial wars of the last century. In each case, the massive resistance of the local population eventually ejected the occupier.
Nonetheless, like the POW-MIA legend, the view that Vietnam was an unnecessary defeat became a deep-seated belief among young Republicans who would later occupy positions of power. Bush's stubbornness regarding Iraq is thus an echo of his profound refusal to accept that America's military might can be defeated. His world view simply cannot accommodate a situation in which America cannot prevail by force of arms. The revelation that Kissinger is advising Bush to fight on to victory is entirely consistent with this view.
Like the desperate Nixon, Bush is now considering introducing nuclear weapons into the Mideast to salvage his lost war. Unlike Nixon, Bush may be crazy enough to go forward. Although Nixon is dead, the Dracula-like monster of American militarism roams the world, and until a stake is driven through its heart, our nation will continue to squander blood and treasure on fiascos like Iraq.
In summary, the only lesson America learned from Vietnam was that our invincible military was betrayed by political weaklings. Our pending failure in Iraq is a direct consequence of our leadership's belief in a profoundly mistaken view of the Vietnam war.