Perspective: Korea as a model for Iraq

Above: The South Korean government announced in December 2004 that it was giving extra land to the US military for a substantial expansion of an army base in Pyeongtaek, including land in local villages and farmers' properties. The goverment responded with riot police to counter the villagers' protests.

As Washington wages a new battle over how to end the Iraq war, it's eyeing the Korean War as a model. Officially, that war never ended, even 57 years after hostilities. US troops remain there. What kind of model is that?

Oddly enough, that "model" appears to be moving quickly away from the status of no-war-but-no-peace on the Korean Peninsula. The idea of maintaining a permanent American force in South Korea doesn't seem as permanent as it once did. Korea may have another type of lesson for the Iraq war.

Read the rest at the Christian Science Monitor