Two military precedents flicker almost subliminally through the mind when Americans imagine war with Iraq: the conflict might look like the Six-Day War. Or it might look like Vietnam.
Those are the hypothetical extremes: best case, worst case. Americans in a muscular frame of mind (not quite trusting it, however) like to think that they might repeat Israel's 1967 victory: the brilliant lightning strikes, the armies flashing across the desert, the war over quicker than Saturday-morning cartoons.
At the other emotional pole, the depressive version presents itself, all darkness: a memory of Vietnam's self-delusions and waste, its follies on an epic...
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