Substitute Vietnam then, if the point makes you feel better.
What you might do better to note is both of those conflicts consisted of the US invading someone else's home soil to effect change and being outlasted in terms of public interest - a public who at home were living peaceful, first world lifestyles.
Everyones little civil war fantasy is when the fight is happening on your home turf to start with.
I don't have any sort of civil war fantasy, but I think that holding out against a military deployment in-country until it became socially and politically untenable would be pretty reasonable.
There's many dictatorships which are considerably older then that, yet weapons are easily available or common - Iraqis didn't lack for small arms during Saddam's rule.