Tuesady night, President George W. Bush gave perhaps his finest speech, laying out his plans for the year which included domestic programs and, unavoidably, the war in Iraq. "I am confident in our plan for victory, I am confident in the will of the Iraqi people, I am confident in the skill and spirit of our military. We are in this fight to win, and we are winning."

Yet Vietnam veteran and Congressman John Murtha has disagreed since last November. "We fought our Civil War. Let them (the Iraqis) fight their civil war," he said.

Murtha should know better. He had fought in the longest American overseas intervention and witnessed its end on Capitol Hill. He is also wrong about America's unwanted presence in Iraq. Despite the American departure, two decades of civil war in Vietnam didn't end in peace. The winners exacted revenge on the losers and drove out millions in the process.

But America did not lose in Vietnam, it simply quit. It had had enough.

Much has already been argued over the alleged lies that led to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Naysayers believed the loss of Phnom Penh and Saigon didn't constitute a row of fallen dominoes. In the aftermath, blame was rampant and clouded the lessons of Vietnam.

To avoid the disastrous embarrassment of another Vietnam, America must avoid another disgraceful exit. The Bush administration could learn from the Nixon administration: Don't micromanage the Iraqi Security Forces and overstay our welcome.

In February 1973, President Richard M. Nixon dispatched a series of messages during the first weeks of the new Congress. In particular, he wrote about the signing of the Paris Peace Accords a few days earlier that would enable the release of 801 American POWs and catalyzed what would be a slow, sure death for South Vietnam. "The peace with honor we have achieved in Vietnam has strengthened this basic American credibility."

That credibility turned into a treachery; Nixon later resigned from office in disgrace. The Watergate babies entered office and failed to uphold the provisions of the bilateral peace treaty between Hanoi and Washington. The war had simply outlasted America's patience.

The politicians were blamed first. Nixon held the Congress responsible. The U.S. military was also blamed, but that perception has changed over time. The late General William Westmoreland faulted the press for undoing his war efforts. Then there was the South Vietnamese leadership, who lost their country a mere two years after the last American troops and POWs returned home.

Bui Diem, South Vietnam's ambassador to the United States, wrote about Saigon's final days in his memoir, "In the Jaws of History." An old friend had asked him about the news in 1974 that the U.S. Congress had reduced the volume of U.S. aid.

"Is it possible for a great nation to behave this way?" his friend, a South Vietnamese storeowner, asked. "When they wanted to come, they came. And when they want to leave, they leave. It's as if a neighbor came over and made a shambles of your house, then all of a sudden he decides the whole thing is wrong, so he calls it quits. How can they just do that?"

Bui had no answer.

The solutions are still elusive in Iraq, yet we owe it to the Iraqis to fix their country because we had broken it. That doesn't mean American troops should bear the burden of battle. Put the Iraqi military to the test by themselves, without embedded American advisers, air power and reporters.