IMO, you are not quite right.
The drawdown of the American troops was possible partly because of participation of allies and mainly because America began to change its tactics by carpet-bombing the enemy. (American forces had proven to be ineffective in the steamy jungles of Vietnam, anyway, and many of them were unwilling fighters!) Also Nixon ("Tricky Dick") wanted to give a verisimilitude of truth to his lie to the American people that the war was being won and that the rest of the troops would be coming soon. That "soon" was followed by another and another "soon", and eventually that "soon" turned out to be several years! What an effing joke! (A joke, if you can call it that.) It was the hubris of the president and his disregard for the lives of soldiers, both American and non-American, to say nothing of the lives of the enemy combatants, that extended the war for much longer than was necessary.
Yea, history repeats itself! The Vietnam War was based on a false premise - the "domino theory" of the spread of Communism. Now the Iraq War is also based on a false premise (and worse, on an out-and-out lie) that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The failure to end the Vietnam War was due to hubris. The reluctance to end the Iraq War is also due to hubris. And worse, cronyism and GREED played a very big part, too.
From the vantage point of history we now see that the Vietnam War was essentially a civil war --- between the north and south --- much like most other civil wars elsewhere in history. It is also visible from history that western incursions into the Middle East have been motivated by greed for black gold --- OIL!!!
By the way, in case you haven't read it yet, you will do well to read to read Noam Chomsky's book, HEGEMONY OR SURVIVAL, AMERICA'S QUEST FOR GLOBAL DOMINANCE published by Henry Holt & Co; ISBN 0 8050-7688-2. To start with, you might want to read reviewers' comments to this book at amazon.com.
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