Certainly.

The war in Viet Nam was prosecuted badly for several reasons, most noteably in that it was being fought as a small version of WW II. Our nation had yet to learn how to deal with the sort of political/guerrilla war, whereas that sort of war was precisely what had been going on in the far east for a long time.

We pulled out and the pretense was that it had been a bad war, but then Carter comes along and makes that into official policy, and before long our nation is mired in international helplessness.

Ronald Reagan took up precisely the same overall strategy that spawned Viet Nam, but he surrounded himself with people that were willing and able to make that policy work. I think it took the hostage crisis to open America's eyes to the fact that all the poor beset third world coutryies are not necessarily innocent victims of our greed. In any event, since that time we have gotten better and better at that sort of warfare, and actually, with nothing but a little half decade hiccup, our entire military history during the late 20th century is defined by many, many wars a lot like Viet Nam, most of which we carried off well.

To characterize Viet Nam as an unmitigated failure is to ignore all the military victories that were carried off even in that country. There is one main failure of Viet Nam, and that was moral relativism and a lack of political will. Most of our nation has learned that lesson from Viet Nam and moved on. It's time for liberals to do the same.