New Vietnam? More like Suez says top Tory

Does it really matter? Both were monumental screw ups, so you can draw parallels either way.

Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary who seeks to become the next leader of the Conservative Party, said Tuesday that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was the worst foreign policy blunder since the 1956 Suez crisis.

Rifkind, one of five contenders hoping to lead the opposition party, said President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had failed to understand the consequences of toppling Saddam Hussein.

"My own view is that the Bush experiment in bringing democracy to the Middle East, the short- and medium-term consequence, has been to turn Iraq from a major problem into a huge crisis," he told a meeting on the sidelines of the Conservatives' annual convention.

"It is the single biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez," Rifkind said.