Another Vietnam Parallel In Iraq
This column was written by Lawrence F. Kaplan.
Of all the depressing ways that the war in Vietnam has been replayed in Iraq — the failed architect of the war being promoted to World Bank chief, the failed ground commander being promoted to Army chief of staff, congressional Democrats reverting to Vietnam-type, the whole rotten litany — nothing can top the belated dispatch to Iraq of David Petraeus, a general who actually knows what he's doing.
Armed with a strategy that rejects nearly four years' worth of big-unit sweeps and the widespread application of conventional tactics against an unconventional foe, Petraeus has instead focused on securing Baghdad's population. Already, attacks and executions in the capital have (depending on the source) declined by one-half to one-third. Alas, the surge could transform Baghdad into Zurich, and it wouldn't be enough to budge the course of the U.S. enterprise in Iraq. That's because the base of support for the war — American public opinion — has utterly collapsed, and it's not the public's fault. If the circumstances seem familiar, that's because they are: In General Petraeus, the ghost of Creighton Abrams walks again.
Analogizing Petraeus to General Abrams, the highly regarded commander of U.S. forces during the latter years of the Vietnam War, has become a favorite pastime in Baghdad and Washington. And for good reason: As with so many other public figures tied to the Iraq war, the likeness to a Vietnam-era personality is downright eerie in Petraeus' case. Like Petraeus, Abrams replaced a commander plainly not up to the task — William Westmoreland in Abrams' case, George Casey in Petraeus'. (Asked at a press conference how he intended to combat the insurgency in Vietnam, Westmoreland famously responded with a word: "firepower.") Like Petraeus, Abrams rejected his predecessor's approach in favor of a "clear and hold" strategy that elevated the importance of population security over the tactic of destroying the enemy. After Abrams assumed command, recounts General Fred Weyand in Lewis Sorley's A Better War, "tactics changed within fifteen minutes." Substitute "Iraqi" for "Vietnamese" and Abrams's "one-war plan" — which aimed "to provide meaningful, continuing security for the Vietnamese people in expanding areas of increasingly effective civil authority" — reads like a distillation of Petraeus' "best practices" of counterinsurgency.
But the resemblance between the two generals goes beyond the particulars of strategy. In the narrative of Vietnam embraced by the officer corps — and popularized in books such as Sorley's — Abrams all but won the war only to be robbed of victory by a weak-willed public and a perfidious Congress. By 1972, "the pacification program had essentially eliminated the guerrilla problem in most of [South Vietnam]," the program's deputy, William Colby, recalls in his book, Lost Victory. By then, of course, the operational in clock in Vietnam was so badly out of sync with the political clock in Washington that it no longer really mattered. A similar complaint is rapidly becoming conventional wisdom among the officer corps in Iraq, whose members routinely argue that, even as Petraeus and his surge achieve real progress, the home front has collapsed.
There is a kernel of truth here, but no more. Drawing the analogy to Iraq, Colonel Stuart Herrington (Retired) writes in Parameters, the journal of the Army War College, that "having wasted more than three years (until 1968) pursuing a flawed strategy, the Pentagon lost the support of the American population and was not given the time to get it right, even when it was clear that General Creighton Abrams' pacification and Vietnamization approach might have worked." Note here that Herrington does not blame the American public, but rather the three wasted years that collapsed its will. In Iraq, too, the Army wasted more than three years pursuing a flawed strategy — the difference being that, even now, it's not at all clear that what worked, or ought to have worked, in Vietnam will work in Baghdad.
Leave aside that South Vietnam boasted a relatively well-trained and certainly well-equipped array of security forces, while Iraq boasts neither. Indeed, leave aside all the ways in which South Vietnam during the early '70s compares favorably to Iraq today. At the end of the day, the United States lost the war in Vietnam. And, like in Iraq, it did so for reasons that go beyond the realm of public support. As in Vietnam, had the Army employed a suitable approach from the outset, it might have had a shot at winning the war in Iraq before losing it home. But, as the war grinds into its fifth year, charges of abandonment ring hollow.
So, yes, the proximate cause of America's exit from Iraq may turn out to be a collapse of will at home. And, yes, if Washington continues to ground its Iraq polices in political calculation and bogus posturing, it will have earned some of the blame for America's defeat. But, having studied the fate of Abrams for 30 years, today's military leaders knew full well the lesson of his cautionary tale: The wars that America loses at home tend to have been lost on the battlefield.
By Lawrence F. Kaplan
If you like this article, go to www.tnr.com, which breaks down today's top stories and offers nearly 100 years of news, opinion, and analysis
The New Republic Of all the depressing ways that the war in Vietnam has been replayed in Iraq — the failed architect of the war being promoted to World Bank chief, the failed ground commander being promoted to Army chief of staff, congressional Democrats reverting to Vietnam-type, the whole rotten litany — nothing can top the belated dispatch to Iraq of David Petraeus, a general who actually knows what he's doing.
Armed with a strategy that rejects nearly four years' worth of big-unit sweeps and the widespread application of conventional tactics against an unconventional foe, Petraeus has instead focused on securing Baghdad's population. Already, attacks and executions in the capital have (depending on the source) declined by one-half to one-third. Alas, the surge could transform Baghdad into Zurich, and it wouldn't be enough to budge the course of the U.S. enterprise in Iraq. That's because the base of support for the war — American public opinion — has utterly collapsed, and it's not the public's fault. If the circumstances seem familiar, that's because they are: In General Petraeus, the ghost of Creighton Abrams walks again.
Analogizing Petraeus to General Abrams, the highly regarded commander of U.S. forces during the latter years of the Vietnam War, has become a favorite pastime in Baghdad and Washington. And for good reason: As with so many other public figures tied to the Iraq war, the likeness to a Vietnam-era personality is downright eerie in Petraeus' case. Like Petraeus, Abrams replaced a commander plainly not up to the task — William Westmoreland in Abrams' case, George Casey in Petraeus'. (Asked at a press conference how he intended to combat the insurgency in Vietnam, Westmoreland famously responded with a word: "firepower.") Like Petraeus, Abrams rejected his predecessor's approach in favor of a "clear and hold" strategy that elevated the importance of population security over the tactic of destroying the enemy. After Abrams assumed command, recounts General Fred Weyand in Lewis Sorley's A Better War, "tactics changed within fifteen minutes." Substitute "Iraqi" for "Vietnamese" and Abrams's "one-war plan" — which aimed "to provide meaningful, continuing security for the Vietnamese people in expanding areas of increasingly effective civil authority" — reads like a distillation of Petraeus' "best practices" of counterinsurgency.
But the resemblance between the two generals goes beyond the particulars of strategy. In the narrative of Vietnam embraced by the officer corps — and popularized in books such as Sorley's — Abrams all but won the war only to be robbed of victory by a weak-willed public and a perfidious Congress. By 1972, "the pacification program had essentially eliminated the guerrilla problem in most of [South Vietnam]," the program's deputy, William Colby, recalls in his book, Lost Victory. By then, of course, the operational in clock in Vietnam was so badly out of sync with the political clock in Washington that it no longer really mattered. A similar complaint is rapidly becoming conventional wisdom among the officer corps in Iraq, whose members routinely argue that, even as Petraeus and his surge achieve real progress, the home front has collapsed.
There is a kernel of truth here, but no more. Drawing the analogy to Iraq, Colonel Stuart Herrington (Retired) writes in Parameters, the journal of the Army War College, that "having wasted more than three years (until 1968) pursuing a flawed strategy, the Pentagon lost the support of the American population and was not given the time to get it right, even when it was clear that General Creighton Abrams' pacification and Vietnamization approach might have worked." Note here that Herrington does not blame the American public, but rather the three wasted years that collapsed its will. In Iraq, too, the Army wasted more than three years pursuing a flawed strategy — the difference being that, even now, it's not at all clear that what worked, or ought to have worked, in Vietnam will work in Baghdad.
Leave aside that South Vietnam boasted a relatively well-trained and certainly well-equipped array of security forces, while Iraq boasts neither. Indeed, leave aside all the ways in which South Vietnam during the early '70s compares favorably to Iraq today. At the end of the day, the United States lost the war in Vietnam. And, like in Iraq, it did so for reasons that go beyond the realm of public support. As in Vietnam, had the Army employed a suitable approach from the outset, it might have had a shot at winning the war in Iraq before losing it home. But, as the war grinds into its fifth year, charges of abandonment ring hollow.
So, yes, the proximate cause of America's exit from Iraq may turn out to be a collapse of will at home. And, yes, if Washington continues to ground its Iraq polices in political calculation and bogus posturing, it will have earned some of the blame for America's defeat. But, having studied the fate of Abrams for 30 years, today's military leaders knew full well the lesson of his cautionary tale: The wars that America loses at home tend to have been lost on the battlefield.
By Lawrence F. Kaplan
If you like this article, go to www.tnr.com, which breaks down today's top stories and offers nearly 100 years of news, opinion, and analysis
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Implicit in my prior post is the idea that the lesson that's supposed to be learned from Iraq is that those control freaks who think they're just inherently better than others need to become more realistic about other peoples' strengths and weaknesses (including themselves) and become better at assessing what people and situations they can and cannot influence. It may make you feel fredgrad that you're superior to think that Iraqi people and the average American are 'weak', but it's not rooted in reality in a way that leads to productive thinking. If you try to address Iran the way you Saddam was addressed, then maybe you're still part of the problem and not part of the solution even though you've at least disassociated from Bush on some level. The ideal way to have dealt with Saddam would have been to leave him in power and escalate UN inspections - same goes for Iran. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is resist the urge to dominate others and and accept that optimization sometimes requires embracing amiguity.
That's just naive, that we lost due to faults by the President and the Dept of Defense, I am not questioning, but you not wanting to admit there were enemies working to defeat us to further their own aims is solely due to your blind hatred of Bush and wanting to have only him to blame, and that's idiocy. This war may be lost (though I think Petraeus may be just the guy who has a slight chance of turning this around), and withdrawal may be our only terrible option left (there are no good ones anymore) - but its time some of the people who say we've lost and withdraw start thinking of the day after we withdraw and who will have gained by our loss, who beat us, and how we contain THEIR victory...as anyone informed on the world knows that those who contrived to beat us, and capitalized on our mistakes are not our friends and won't be content to just rest on their laurels...they have plans to use this victory as a steppingstone to other "victories", so we better have a plan do defeat their further intentions. To not think about the day after we pull-out and declare defeat is just as dangerous as the poor planning that put us in the position to lose this battle!
their cowardous actions have killed more people than any weapon known to man!
Posted by superpatri18
This guy, lieberman18, liebersissy, now he's "superpatrioteer".
Allow me to define a "patrioteer":
"one who makes a blatant show patriotism, or who profits from it"
A perfect fit for a guy, probably a staffer for AIPAC or ADL, or the JDL - and getting paid to inject his false patriotism on line.
I wonder how much he get paid - by the hour or by line?
Anyway, his hot air and racism would serve him well back in the holy land - he's got the "right to return" and spanking new israeli passport to boot. The return of the profligate son, ready to kill all the naziislamofacists - go home lieberman and take your uncle joe with you.
ISRAEL WANTS AMERICA TO FIGHT IRAQ AN IRAN!
WHILE YOU ARE AT IT TAKE JOE LIEBERMAN BACK TO ISRAEL.
ASK THESE BOUGHT B A S T A R D S WHY IF THEIR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL TRUMPS THEIR DUTY TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING KILLED FROM THEIR STATES?
ASK THEM HOW MUCH AIPAC INFLUENCES THEIR VOTES ON IRAQ AND IRAN?
IF YOU DON%u2019T KNOW WHAT AIPAC IS THEN DO A LITTLE RESEARCH OR SHUT THEHELL UP YOU IDIOTS!
TRULY SOME OF YOU ARE SO IGNORANT IT DEFIES REASON THAT YOU CAN CROSS THE ROAD!
http://www.aipac.org/forms/join_aipacClubs.htm
Alexander, Lamar- (R - TN)
Allard, Wayne- (R - CO)
Chambliss, Saxby- (R - GA)
Cochran, Thad- (R - MS)
Coleman, Norm- (R - MN)
Collins, Susan M.- (R - ME)
Cornyn, John- (R - TX)
Craig, Larry E.- (R - ID)
Dole, Elizabeth- (R - NC)
Enzi, Michael B.- (R - WY)
Graham, Lindsey- (R - SC)
Hagel, Chuck- (R - NE)
Inhofe, James M.- (R - OK)
McConnell, Mitch- (R - KY)
Roberts, Pat- (R - KS)
Sessions, Jeff- (R - AL)
Smith, Gordon H.- (R - OR)
Stevens, Ted- (R - AK)
Sununu, John E.- (R - NH)
Warner, John- (R - VA)
If you think Americas sacrifice is worth it contact your ELECTED OFFICIAL and tell them http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
The House Speakers email address: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov
info@gop.com Here is the Republican Party email address too!
democraticparty@democrats.org Here is the Democratic Party email address also!
Posted by SamTheTVCat at 08:08 PM : Mar 20, 2007
It seems that maney stupid things have and will be done simply because it was thought it could be and wasn't. The real problems come out of the combination of not only thinking something can be done and can't but also thinking it SHOULD be done and shouldn't.
fredgrad2000
This isn't a football game - Bush and his cronies biggest enemy is themselves. They were defeated by their own arrogance - they put themselves in a position whereby success was dependent upon their enemies wanting to follow their lead. Al Quaida and Iran didn't have to do a *** thing.
As for the author of this piece - once again, the assumption is that the war is winnable and that success/failure is contingent upon the resolve of the 'weak' general public. It's that kind of self-laudatory thinking that got Bush and his cronies into this unwinnable war in the first place - lack of self awareness is a weakness not a strength.