Why Iran raises the Iraq Syndrome spectre

Washington

IN THE aftermath of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s and the end of the American military presence in that country where the United States had suffered a painful strategic blow, a national consensus seemed to be evolving: From now on, the American people and their representatives in Washington would be disinclined to give the green light to another major US military intervention abroad.

What later came to be known as the Vietnam Syndrome then dominated the way officials and lawmakers in Washington, as well as the American people, responded to international crises for the next two decades or so.