Recently we read an essay by Barbara Tuchman, the Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She said: “The affairs and reputation of the U.S. have steadily deteriorated since our military involvement began. Control of the war and the policy perpetuating it is in the hands of a president who has locked himself on course and, whether from personal pride or failure to comprehend what is happening, is unwilling to deviate, adjust, or alter direction … (the war) is destroying the land and welfare and lives of the people we are supposed to be fighting for.”

Tuchman went on to say, “Yet we persist, with escalation our only answer, as the generals of 1914-1918 persisted in the progressive slaughter of the Western front.”

Although these words were written in March 1968, about Vietnam, we were struck by their relevance to Iraq in March 2007. Let’s consider Tuchman’s commentary more closely.

. Our deteriorating reputation abroad. Even citizens of our ally Britain regard the U.S. as a greater threat to world stability than North Korea or Iran. The recent claim by Bush that weapons from Iran have been found in Iraq has been met with skepticism. How can the U.S. be respected by other countries if the statements of our president are so easily discounted?

. “Personal pride or failure to comprehend what is happening.” Every utterance of Bush about Iraq in press conferences and in interviews demonstrates his incomprehension. He rejected recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. He fails to understand either the depth of the rejection of his policies in the November election or voter anger at the spectacle of a president trapped by bad advice and impervious to facts.

As for pride, we need only cite a report in the Feb. 17 Washington Post that said that the supplemental State Department war budget proposed by Bush includes 500 million for a new embassy in Iraq. Only Molly Ivins could do justice to this preposterous folly.

. “War is destroying the land and welfare and lives of the people we are supposed to be fighting for.” The hospitals and morgues of Baghdad are overwhelmed. We rarely hear news reports of the total number of Iraqi casualties but the almost-daily pictures of carnage from car bombings tell us the number must be many times the number of U.S. forces killed and wounded. Middle-class Iraqi professionals have fled their country.

How arrogant we are to create the violence that is destroying an ancient civilization and then tell the survivors it is their responsibility to end the chaos and rebuild.

. “We persist, with escalation our only answer.” This tactic has a new name, “surge,” but Tuchman’s analysis of its failure in Vietnam is applicable to Iraq today – “Stumbling in the old ruts.”

Finally, Tuchman wrote in her 1968 essay “Vietnam: Why, When, and How to Get Out,” that the U.S. was “fighting a war for an objective no one can define. If it is to make the world safe from aggression, that is a slogan, not a possibility.” Bringing democracy to Iraq was and is a meaningless slogan, the impossibility of which is now clear to most Americans. On March 17, nearly 40 years after Tuchman dissected a failed war strategy, many citizens will gather across America, in big cities, towns, and villages, to demand an end to the Iraq war. May this be the largest gathering for peace in our nation’s history.

Donna Murphy and Peg Cruikshank are residents of Corea.