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By Ira Sharkansky
 JERUSALEM—There are some exciting and troubling parallels between the presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack H. Obama.
They are exciting intellectually, with several points of comparison.
They are troubling from a policy point of view, insofar as Johnson's being sucked into the vortex of Vietnam, for which he was not prepared by his political career in domestic politics, may foreshadow Obama's being drawn into the swamp that extends from the eastern Mediterranean to Pakistan, equally foreign with respect to his background in Chicago politics or Harvard Law School.
Another point of comparison is with the domestic agendas and styles of the two presidents. Johnson sought to make his place in history with civil rights and the War on Poverty. Civil rights was relatively simple and successful. The War on Poverty was more innovative, extensive, complex and troubled. And it looks more like Obama's domestic agenda.
Johnson moved quickly to reap the opportunities that fell to him by the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination, and then by his record landslide in 1964. His model was the onslaught of Franklin Roosevelt, who managed to achieve Congressional approval of legislative proposals that had names but were not fully drafted. The crises of 1963 and 1965 were not so dramatic as that which greeted Roosevelt, and Johnson was not so outlandish in his aspirations. However, he conceded that his War on Poverty included programs that were untried and doubtful as to their administrative success. He felt he had a limited time, wanted to achieve as much as he could in Congress, and would let the future decide which programs worked, and which would be modified or dropped.
Recent New York Times articles about Obama's agenda, Rahm Emanuel, and the ongoing struggle over health policy suggest that the president is working in ways similar to Johnson and Roosevelt.
The White House is pushing a number of big things at the same time. Massive efforts on an economic emergency were the first and continuing orders of business, followed by what was billed, with justice, as a revolutionary fix of a broken health system. That thousand page piece of legislation is generating considerable controversy and no end of counter proposals. Most recently it has led the White House to signal a shift from a government run insurance program to a cooperative industry program. The Times describes that as "so ill defined that no one knows exactly what it would look like or how effectively it would compete with commercial insurers."
As if that were not enough, the president has said that he wants to reform immigration and citizenship legislation in a humane direction.
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Migration will not touch as many Americans as directly as a change in the way they receive health care, but it may touch their feelings almost as much. One can expect an overlap between those opposing the president on health care they call socialistic, and those who will oppose giving an easy ride to migrants who arrived illegally.
And here we come to the Johnson-Obama parallels on foreign and military policy.
Vietnam in the 1960s differs in many details from the Muslim Middle East (plus Israel) in the first decade of the 21st century. Yet there are some disturbing points of comparison.
How many times did Johnson and his generals describe the light at the end of their tunnel? Obama and his generals are saying something similar: that they are in the process of withdrawing American forces from the cities of Iraq, and will then withdraw more completely from the country. Experts better informed than me can decide if the Vietcong and North Vietnamese were more or less assiduous than the various groups of Iraqi Muslims blowing up one another and rival mosques.
No less ominous is the president's commitment to increase forces and activity in Afghanistan.
It is a long way from producing the 55,000 Americans killed in Vietnam, but no less treacherous for naive Americans than what they called a battle between freedom and Communism in Vietnam. Who's a friend, who's an enemy in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan can change quickly, without advance warning to limited American intelligence assets. And what about American commitment to a war on drugs in the presence of allies whose livelihoods come from their shares in the opium superpower.
The president's commitment to peace in the Middle East is no less threatening to his peace of mind and place in history. Most recently he has talked of persuading Palestinians to give up on the right of return to Israel for refugees in exchange for compensation. The devils in these details lie in how much compensation? To children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as well as the original refugees? Who will supply how much money? With or without continued support for the housing, food, and medical care of those labeled refugees and their families? And will the president tackle the unenviable task of persuading Lebanon and other Arab countries to grant citizenship to the millions of Palestinians who have been in their countries without rights since 1948, and may remain if they cannot return to Israel or fit in Palestine?
Johnson lasted one full term before hightailing it back to Texas, a broken man. Obama speaks better, is younger and apparently healthier. The Sharkanskys wish him well, but do not want to leave a neighborhood of Jerusalem where he would forbid building for Jews, and might ultimately want to see as Judenrein.
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