As soon as I heard the story this morning that the Iraqi government had foiled a plot by Al Qaeda terrorists to infiltrate the Green Zone in Baghdad and storm the U.S. embassy, I thought of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. James S. Robbins thought the exact same thing, and writes about it on the NRO website.

Then, 19 VC sappers blew a hole in the wall surrounding the embassy grounds and shot down the guards inside the gate. A sharp firefight ensued, and enemy forces failed to occupy the embassy proper; but early erroneous reports, relayed by Asoociated Press reporter Peter Arnett, credited the VC with taking the first floor of the building. Moreover, while the attackers had been either killed or captured within hours of the assault, film of the attack ran and reran on network news programs, giving the impression of a much more significant action. Furthermore, the press quickly credited the enemy with a “psychological victory,” even though they had failed even to come close to meeting their military objectives. In this respect, the Embassy attack was a microcosm of the entire Tet Offensive.

The current crop of terrorists well understand the Tet dynamic. Al Qaeda has frequently made mention of Vietnam as a model for the type of victory they are seeking, a blow to the American will that results in demoralization at home and withdrawal of the troops. In the same vein, they also make mention of Mogadishu 1993 and Beirut 1983. Prussian military theorist Karl von Clausewitz famously posited a “trinity” essential for the successful prosecution of war — synchronization between three necessary elements; the fighting forces, the political leadership, and the national will. The terrorists realize they cannot defeat our military, nor sway our (current) leaders, so they seek to strike at our only vulnerability, our national commitment to continue to prosecute the struggle.

Read the whole thing. He is absolutely right to believe that the terrorists well understand that the only way to defeat us is to break our national will. The only way to break our national will is to use our own MSM to bombard us with disheartening, defeatist images day after day, as in Vietnam, to create the political atmosphere that will ensure the election of those who would order our retreat.

Here are a couple of opinions about Iraqi unity, a theme President Bush has added to his speeches recently. This one predicts an Iraq that looks a lot like Lebanon, and this one gives some of the history of Iraq and analyzes some of the calls for partition of the country into three pieces.

The Israelis took another step toward a confrontation with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority by raiding a Palestinian-run prison to seize some prisoners implicated in the assasination of an Israeli cabinet minister some years back. Could this just be a harbinger of a more widespread confrontation to come?

The Wall Street Journal hopes that the recent effort by Senator Feingold to censure the President will lead to a real debate about the Democrats' impeachment agenda. Don't hold your breath waiting for that debate to break out. The MSM will not report on it, and Democratic leaders like Kerry, Clinton, Reid et. al. will avoid it like the plague. Of course, if the Democrats win control of Congress, impeachment proceedings will begin in earnest.