Khaldiyah, Iraq ? Is Iraq another Vietnam?

After three weeks in the country, I’d say, “Not yet.” But that could change if U.S. policy continues along its current path.

Iraq is not South Vietnam, where much of the population quietly supported the Viet Cong. So far, most Iraqis do not back the forces attacking U.S. soldiers.

From the markets of Mosul in the north, to the universities of Baghdad, to the mosques of the Shiite south, I asked, “Do you want the Americans to leave tomorrow?” In almost every case, the swift reply was: “No. The Americans can’t leave until they restore stability here and we have elections for a new government.”

Iraqis are angry at the U.S. failure to provide stability and restore jobs, but that anger hasn’t exploded into broad-based resistance. Neither Kurds nor Shiites — who together make up the vast majority of the population — want Saddam supporters to return to power. So neither group supports the fierce resistance to U.S. troops in the so-called Sunni triangle north and west of Baghdad, home to Saddam’s most loyal supporters.

But Sunni resistance is growing. It has the potential to undercut the political and economic progress that must happen soon if most Iraqis are to maintain patience with the U.S. presence over the coming months.

Yet misguided U.S. policies are making that resistance worse.

In the Sunni triangle, American military tactics are increasing the resistance. Sunni tribal leaders complain about excessive force that has killed numerous civilians, and inspires local youths to undertake vendettas against U.S. soldiers.

“You have to ask,” said one U.S. military official from another Iraqi sector, “whether different military tactics would produce different results.”

In Khaldiyah, next to Fallujah, where a Chinook helicopter was downed on Sunday, I visited Shaikh Fanar al Kharbit. His brother leads the huge Sunni Bu Khalifa tribe, which worked with Saddam in the 1980s but plotted against him in the 1990s. On April 10, based on bad intelligence, U.S. jets bombed the house of Kharbit’s nephew and killed 23 of his relatives. Two weeks later, U.S. soldiers killed 15 civilian protesters in front of a school in Fallujah, setting off an unending vendetta with residents of that city.

Kharbit’s farmhouse nestles idyllically against the bullrushes of the Euphrates, but he says he is living in hell: “The first hell was Saddam, and now we have an American intruder who promised something and didn’t deliver on their promises. The situation is very bad, and it will become worse.”

The shaikh complains that U.S. troops break down doors, spray homes with bullets, take women in for questioning (a taboo in tribal society), and fail to deal with the mass unemployment of Sunnis who’ve lost jobs in the military and the Baath Party. He says they also humiliate Sunni tribal leaders who could help them.

One hundred seventy-five U.S. troops searched his home in late October, Kharbit says, and took away a valuable gold watch, other gold jewelry, and thousands of dollars. I tried to verify this story but never received the promised response from U.S. military officials in nearby Ramadi.

However, Kharbit snaps, “No,” when I ask if American troops should leave now. They should stay, “but with rules,” he says, pulling back to bases in outside cities like Fallujah. They must also show local Sunnis that there are economic benefits to cooperation. “Then we will help get rid of the Saddam remnants.”

Would this work? It certainly makes sense to woo as many Sunni tribal leaders as possible away from the Saddam bitter-enders. Up in the Sunni tribal region of Mosul in the north, Gen. David Petraeus has pursued such a strategy, and the region is quiet, unlike Fallujah.

The key to avoiding another Vietnam is to prove to as many Iraqis as possible that the United States aims to help them and to hand over sovereign power to them. Policies that smack of the opposite will boomerang.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.