Iraq and Vietnam

I was in Thailand when Vietnam went south, do you remember the sequence of events and how close it comes to what we are seeing in Iraq the last few days.   The Vietnam story went something like this; peace talks, agreement to get POWs back and disengage; Hanoi cheats and invades, President in the middle of Watergate so no American help, not even supplies; the result South Vietnam is overrun after we expended 57,000 lives and untold billions.   Fast forward to Iraq; new President can't negotiate a status of forces agreement, pulls out all troops, we lose influence and ability to help, bad guys begin their push, we provide no support, and today the enemy is within a few miles of Baghdad.  Consider Germany, Japan and Korea, we left troops (still have them) and the end result was positive.  America needs to lead and use military force when needed; a failure to do that results in losing countries that we have fought for even though we  never lost  a battle.  I can't help but believe President Reagan would be increasing our military and sending in American air power to demonstrate some more shock and awe in Iraq.