This articile originally appears in The American Thinker
Peter Rodman, one of the architects of our military and political policy in Iraq and William Shawcross, liberal hawk now branded traitor by the left for his support of the Iraq War, have written what I believe to be an extremely important Op-Ed in the New York Times on why walking away in defeat from Iraq would be an unmitigated disaster:
SOME opponents of the Iraq war are toying with the idea of American defeat. A number of them are simply predicting it, while others advocate measures that would make it more likely. Lending intellectual respectability to all this is an argument that takes a strange comfort from the outcome of the Vietnam War. The defeat of the American enterprise in Indochina, it is said, turned out not to be as bad as expected. The United States recovered, and no lasting price was paid.We beg to differ. Many years ago, the two of us clashed sharply over the wisdom and morality of American policy in Indochina, especially in Cambodia. One of us (Mr. Shawcross) published a book, “Sideshow,†that bitterly criticized Nixon administration policy. The other (Mr. Rodman), a longtime associate of Henry Kissinger, issued a rebuttal in The American Spectator, defending American policy. Decades later, we have not changed our views. But we agreed even then that the outcome in Indochina was indeed disastrous, both in human and geopolitical terms, for the United States and the region. Today we agree equally strongly that the consequences of defeat in Iraq would be even more serious and lasting.
So true. The only problem is, there is absolutely no way forward at present that would bring what the Democrats, the world media, the Arab Street, and the America-hating left would be willing to call “victory” in Iraq. These groups have a vested interest in an American defeat – economic, political, strategic – and will proclaim our surrender (along with Osama and his crew) no matter what the military or political situation when most of our combat troops are removed, probably before the 2008 election.
It is maddening to read the pious pronouncements from the left about how desperately they wanted American to succeed in Iraq (this despite the fact that they opposed the war in the first place) all the while deliberately undermining support for the war by the American people. And by “deliberately” I mean they had a game plan, a narrative that they have pushed for the last 4 years with the stated purpose of weakening the resolve of voters so that Democrats could ride the anti-war sentiment into power.
Readers of this site know that it hasn’t been the left alone that caused this drop off in support by the American people. Our war policies have been flawed from the get go and until recently, nothing we tried seemed to stem the violence in Iraq and indeed, made it worse in some respects. But there is a huge difference between mistakes made in planning and policy and the cold, calculated effort by the left to work to crush the morale of the American people so that they could use the Iraq War to vault back into power.
But if the left is trying to convince us that their withering criticisms of the justification for the war, its subsequent prosecution, and all the ancillary issues that have arisen because of it as well as vicious personal attacks on the President were only for the purpose of improving our policies so that we could achieve victory, only little children who still believe in Santa Claus take them at their word. Therefore, one must conclude that their stated reasons for wishing an American defeat in Iraq – that we “deserve” it or that it would teach us a lesson in “humility” – are a true reflection of their beliefs and thinking.
And that kind of thinking, as Rodman/Shawcross point out, is sheer, unadulterated lunacy. It would repeat the mistakes we made in getting out of Viet Nam:
The 1975 Communist victory in Indochina led to horrors that engulfed the region. The victorious Khmer Rouge killed one to two million of their fellow Cambodians in a genocidal, ideological rampage. In Vietnam and Laos, cruel gulags and “re-education†camps enforced repression. Millions of people fled, mostly by boat, with thousands dying in the attempt.The defeat had a lasting and significant strategic impact. Leonid Brezhnev trumpeted that the global “correlation of forces†had shifted in favor of “socialism,†and the Soviets went on a geopolitical offensive in the third world for a decade. Their invasion of Afghanistan was one result. Demoralized European leaders publicly lamented Soviet aggressiveness and American paralysis.
How does this lesson travel across the years to become relevant in Iraq:
Today, in Iraq, there should be no illusion that defeat would come at an acceptable price. George Orwell wrote that the quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. But anyone who thinks an American defeat in Iraq will bring a merciful end to this conflict is deluded. Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences.As in Indochina more than 30 years ago, millions of Iraqis today see the United States helping them defeat their murderous opponents as the only hope for their country. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have committed themselves to working with us and with their democratically elected government to enable their country to rejoin the world as a peaceful, moderate state that is a partner to its neighbors instead of a threat. If we accept defeat, these Iraqis will be at terrible risk. Thousands upon thousands of them will flee, as so many Vietnamese did after 1975.
No word from the Democrats or the left on what to do with these brave Iraqis who are constantly at risk of being assassinated for helping us and their government. In their world, they don’t exist or worse, are stupid dupes fooled by us evil Americans into helping to legitimize a puppet government. And our government has shamefully denied most Iraqis visas, setting a strict limit on the number of Iraqi immigrants who can come to this country (a total of 692 so far). While security concerns are paramount, it would seem to me that Iraqis who have served American interests should have their visa applications expedited. Indeed, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has just recently put procedures in place that will do just that, allowing 7,000 more Iraqi citizens the opportunity to live in the United States.
Rodman/Shawcross conclude by pointing out the necessity for maintaining our credibility:
Osama bin Laden said, a few months after 9/11, that “when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.†The United States, in his mind, is the weak horse. American defeat in Iraq would embolden the extremists in the Muslim world, demoralize and perhaps destabilize many moderate friendly governments, and accelerate the radicalization of every conflict in the Middle East.Our conduct in Iraq is a crucial test of our credibility, especially with regard to the looming threat from revolutionary Iran. Our Arab and Israeli friends view Iraq in that wider context. They worry about our domestic debate, which had such a devastating impact on the outcome of the Vietnam War, and they want reassurance.
When government officials argued that American credibility was at stake in Indochina, critics ridiculed the notion. But when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, he and his colleagues invoked Vietnam as a reason not to take American warnings seriously. The United States cannot be strong against Iran — or anywhere — if we accept defeat in Iraq.
Already, a chorus is growing on the left that Iran is not a threat, that evidence for their aggressive intentions has been fabricated “just like the evidence that got us into Iraq.” To call that kind of myopic twaddle “suicidal” gives bridge jumpers a bad name. We may very well end up going to war with Iran – or not. But to dismiss them as a threat to the United States, our friends, and our interests is childish and stupid.
Even Barak Obama sees Iran as a serious threat and has not taken the military option off the table. Nor has Hillary Clinton or any other serious Democratic candidate for President. Only those who live in their little Bush-hating cocoons and view every action taken by the government as more evidence of the President’s deviousness can possibly believe we are “manufacturing” evidence in order to justify military action against Iran. Why bother? The Iranians have supplied us with plenty of justification without us having to manufacture anything.
We must find a way through to a satisfactory ending to our involvement in Iraq. There is no alternative. Even if the rest of the world crows about our “defeat” in Iraq when our combat troops depart, governments in the region – including Iran – will know better and base their actions on what is going on in the real world and not the desperate imaginings of fanatical jihadists, the anti-American Arab street, and bitter leftists whose desire to see America humbled has so unbalanced them that it is impossible to tell the difference between the language urging the defeat of the United States used by our enemies and the rhetoric that emanates from supposedly respectable liberal quarters in Congress and on the internet.
That too, evokes memories of Viet Nam, the last time our “humiliation” was seen as a good thing by the left.
5:18 am
“We must find a way through to a satisfactory ending to our involvement in Iraq. There is no alternative.”
Well, it is time to look at what is an acceptable ending to involvement in Iraq then. Lets look at some possible outcomes and see which ones are acceptable;
1) Stable pro-US government which allows permanent US bases for power projection and which enables the oil law being promoted.
Pros : All war aims achieved.
Cons : Never going to happen. The oil law, stability, permanent bases and pro-US government are all pretty much mutually exclusive. You can’t pass that oil law and be stable. You can’t be Stable and have enduring bases, etc.
2) Pro-US government, permanent bases, oil law but constant insurgency.
Pros : Could be achieved with a bit of firm manipulation of the Green Zone.
Cons : Everlasting occupation. Would require the Democrats to sink themselves along with the Republicans and I doubt that they want that as, like all politicians, they think of thier prospects first. Green Zone government rendered even weaker. Iranian influence increases in government.
3) Break up of Iraq into regional confederacies.
Pro : Might tamp down some violence, will certainly give greater lattitude to negotiate with Kurds re bases and oil rights.
Cons : Everlasting insurgency from Sunni, Sadrists. Possible severe ethnic cleansing in Kurdish areas. Possible Turkish invasion of Kurdistan. Handing over Southern Iraq to Iran.
4) Total, immediate withdrawl of US forces.
Pro : No more Us troops get killed. Politicians can at least pretend they had nothing to do with it and keep their jobs. Forces an eventual conclusion to the conflict.
Cons : Probable ethnic cleansing. Iranian influence increased. Probably Turkish invasion of Kurdistan.
5) Replacement of Malaki Government with Sadr / Sunni / nationalist alliance.
Pros : Government stability, possible reconcilliation, holding Kurds in Iraq, Lowering of Iranian influence in South.
Cons : No US bases, no oil law, in fact, no real influence for US in Iraq. Government likely to be hardline Islamist in one form or another though it would be an ally rather than creature of Iran.
Pick any one apart from (1) and aim your actions towards it.
(Obviously you can’t pick (1) because it is impossible, and you might as well hope that everyone wakes up and realises that it has been a bad dream)
To summarise;
You can pick from;
1) A dream world.
2) Permanent occupation.
3) Breakup.
4) Chaos.
5) Al-Sadr crowing.
Unless you can come up with any other possible outcomes.
1:21 pm
Web Reconnaissance for 06/08/2007…
A short recon of whatÂ’s out there that might draw your attention….
1:26 pm
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 06/08/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
4:19 pm
Option #1 sounds good to me.
The Democrat position on this has been incoherent. Sometimes they say we should have listened to Shinseki and sent in a larger number of troops to obtain stability. At other times they make Rumsfeld’s argument for a light force so we’re not seen as an occupying power.
Everyone agrees we need to leave. We need to be just as careful getting out as we should have been getting in. Winning requires a military solution, specifically one that involves Iraq assuming its security commitments.
7:14 am
“Option #1 sounds good to me.”
Well, it sounds good to Mr.Bush as well, and look where basing your military strategy on fantasy has got us all so far.
“The Democrat position on this has been incoherent. Sometimes they say we should have listened to Shinseki and sent in a larger number of troops to obtain stability. At other times they make Rumsfeld’s argument for a light force so we’re not seen as an occupying power.”
The Democracts are no more capable of producing a different result from those I offered above than the Republicans are. No-one was ever capable of achieving any end other than those above from the first moment. We are where we are because option #1 was the only one considered.
“Everyone agrees we need to leave.”
You picked Option #1 which included permanent US bases to project forces in the region.
10:28 am
If you believe that crap about removing a dictator and establishing democracy as the reason for our going to Iraq, dear ol’ St. Nick will be pleased you still wait for him Christmas morning.
A permanent military platform in Iraq, from which to launch forays on this “long difficult war” was the goal from the beginning.
It would seem the Kurdish region is the benefactor of 3500 American dead and, what is it now, $500 Billion in treasure? Guarantee
you that is the fallback position for maintaining this beachhead. The Kurds have been cooperative, but also are very tribal.
Will THEY tolerate a permanent US military presence? I doubt it. The Turks? They’ll
go ballistic. What will happen in Baghdad?
The Iranians will not allow it to create
instability for their home turf. Yes, many
Iraqis will die. It’s time they took the reins and the responsibility for their own fate. All we can do is give them a chance.
We can’t do it for them. It’s their country.
11:06 am
Even if we had won in Vietnam it would have been at great cost, spreading more “Vietnams†throughout Latin America and Africa would have been a viable strategy for the Soviet Union, wearing down the US with constant wars through proxies. Castro was the primary driver for a lot of the Marxist revolts in Latin America and Africa. He wanted to be seen as the world revolutionary leader, so I don‘t see any let up of revolutionary wars as a result of a Vietnam victory. The trouble was that while Castro got the credit for being at the forefront of revolutionary Marxism the Soviet Union got the bill, and a dictator of questionable loyalty. Vietnam’s war with Cambodia, China’s war with Vietnam, and the Sino Soviet border dispute that Nixon so skillfully exploited to break China away from Russia shows that nationalism often trumped “International Communismâ€. It is the nationalist element of the Vietnam war that is so striking [ read US Army report on the subject] the number of people they lost to throw out the foreign invader , France and the US, explains well why they would not take any interference from China later.
The real damage was the mortal wound stuck against the United States, the left became radicalized over the war and the right radicalized in response. Each side views the other with suspicion at best, usually loathing and pure hate. Civilized discussion is gone, now it is all venom and bile, and to top if off people have found out that bashing the other side is very profitable creating yet more alienation. It will take a generation before we recover from the war politically.
As far as the options go I favor #3. I don’t think Iran will have as much influence with the Shiites in the south, it is amazing how people who have gotten their hands on the oil money resent others trying to tell them how to spend it. The South is not monolithic, the factions of Shiites will be consumed in an internal power struggle and the Sunnis will be forgotten. If the Kurds will not do anything about the PPK, the Turks will educate them and nobody will care, they will suffer the consequences of their actions. The Sunnis might come out in the best shape, numbers too small to challenge the other regions so they would stay on the sideline, if oil is discovered they have a piece of the oil pie with no strings attached.
9:02 am
YGTBSM: This piece could only be written by someone not in Southeast Asia in 1960-1975! As I was stationed in Vietnam and later in Thailand for a total of three years (36 months), I find the implied message here, “Peace with Honor” just as repulsive as I find Shawcross and Rodman, neither of whom one assumed carried a rifle into harms way intentionally, both having trouble disconnecting from the Beltway Tit.
This crap is very simple: as George Ball said, call it a victory and leave – let history sort it out.
We unfortunately have a country which cannot collectively keep its pecker in its pants, always eager to inflict some version of “freedom” and “democracy” on some other sovereign countries, serially and in tandem. It is authors like these, and the “proprietor” that have not the depth to understand the problem is very simple and construct chimera, false threads, fairy tales, vague theories—that is what self professed public intellectuals do. LEAVE, 45 days to clear Iraq into Syria, Kuwait, etc. as waystations to the US, forthwith. Leave the equipment and let them settle their own scores. Quit constructing blowback after blowback.
Quit excoriating the so-called left. The right has brought us the most corrupt, criminal, incompetent and venal regime since Caligula or Nero, six years of it, and reconstruction of civil liberties alone will take 10 years. The bastard mafia now in power came and shat upon what it did not break and maul from courts to congress. And, it did it intentionally. We need to get about cutting throats here in the US, mostly regressive right-wing reactionary throats, most in the Republican Party and its fellow travelers. We have seen the rightwing future and it does not work, nor is it moral, of any value whatsoever or viable. So, stop speaking about what you know nothing of.
I am retired military, been in combat, worked my ass for the Army, paid my taxes and then saw the country, and my tax money, overtaken by madmen and madwomen intent on some absolutely insane mission from their gawd with their hair on fire. To sit here and read this makes me understand just how the fish rots from the head down, until it has reached the likes of you all. A corrupt government, and there is no denying that certainly (denial is not a river in Egypt as you think) qualifies you all for the looney bin. I am not left, I damned sure am not right, I damned well am for GOOD GOVERNMENT by people who are not too DAMNED smart. To hell with public intellectuals with their nostrums and snake oil,
their slick presentations, their fronting for corporations who give them sustenance. They all contributed to this nightmare in Iraq, the result of which was evident in 2002 when the MSM would not publish any warnings from those of who had walked these paths.
Now, suddenly, it is Iraq’s fault and problem. Well, I be damned, the propaganda machine is working overtime again and again. We dont have the right to dispose of Iraq since we never had the right or duty to invade yet another sovereign country, for perhaps the 9th or 10th time in 120 years (starting with Hawaii in the late 1800s) with disasterous results worldwide. And, just for fun, I do wish someone would take Kissinger to the world court and string him up. If he dies first, decapitate him body, tear it into quarters and send them to the furthers ends of the earth (like Cromwell), and put his head to rot on a lamp post infront of the White House.
What tripe. You are really ready to continue to kill both Iraquis and Americans just for some damned ethereal ideal which you cannot even express in the English language. Get over it. It is done. We have many more important, no urgent issues to address.
Other than that, I do not feel strongly.
11:36 am
First of all, thank you for your service.
Secondly – You sir, are a loon.
Dragging out the old canard about not knowing squat unless you’ve carried a rifle in combat is pure sophistry. Perhaps you should consider that yours is the perspective that is flawed, given that it is gleaned from only what you were able to see 50 yards in front of you. I daresay that gives you one point of view – a valid one, I’ll admit – but what it does not give you is a corner on truth or knowledge. So get off your arrogant high horse and realize that you suffer from most of the very things you are railing against.
As for the rest of your tiresome rant, you are nothing except an old fashioned isolationist. America is too evil for the world hence, America should not sully the world with its grasping, conniving commercialism and cultural imperialism. I’d say that also is simple minded sophistry but I hate repeating myself.
12:32 pm
All this crap about ‘chaos’ in iraq is being mainlined by the same idiots
who HAVE BEEN WRONG ON NEARLY EVERY ISSUE CONNECTED WITH IRAQ. But they don’t just want tracks on their arms, they want us all on the
black-tar tit and ‘chaos’ doesn’t work any
better than ‘mushroom clouds’ in the long-term.
When we leave the Iraqis will finally be motivated to take charge of their country.
I thought you folks were opposed to the welfare state? How is our enabling different
from making our own citizens dependent on governmental aid?
2:26 pm
grognard & wafranklin:
We won the Vietnam War. I was there as a USAF F4E weapon systems officer at DaNang AB RVN from 1971 to 1972. My undergraduate degree is in Asian Studies. I am also a retired military officer.
We won every battle we fought. No unit ever surrendered.
The Tet Offensive was disaster for the communists. Walter Cronkite falsely declared the war lost. Of the 84,000 VC only 10,000 escaped death or capture. Not a single military objective did they achieve. The Viet Cong ceased to exist as a fighting force.
The North Vietnamese launched their Eastertide Offensive in April. On 26 April, my BOQ was hit by a Soviet 122 MM rocket.
Unlike Tet, which had been a Viet Cong insurgency, this new Spring was a conventional operation with large armor, artillery and infantry units advancing on Quang Tri, An Loc and Pleiku. Nixon was furious that the NVA would attack during an election campaign and after he thought the Paris Peace Talks appeared to be making progress.
On 28 April the weather broke and we brought tactical air power into the fight. The ARVN fought very well with American air support. Of the 200,000 NVA troops that invaded the South, 100,000 were killed. Half of their tanks and half of their armor were destroyed. General Giap was relieved.
Operation Linebacker began with the suppression of enemy air defenses and then moved to hit real targets unlike the BS LBJ/Bobby McNamara raids that were an attempt to “pressure” north Vietnam. The US Navy mined the ports and harbors, trapping Russian, Chinese and Canadian ship. We hit the bridges, airfields, air bases, rail yards, power plants, steel mills, communications infrastructure and every military base in the country. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho began to make more progress.
On the 18th of December 1972, Le Duc Tho walked out of the talks. Nixon ordered Linebacker II - 100 to 150 B-52 sorties per night – to carpet bomb Hanoi and Haiphong. Friends who were POWs tell me that when they heard to sticks of 106 Mk82 500 pound bombs rumble across Hanoi they went wild. The guards, who for years had abused them, were terrified. In ten days, Hanoi was helpless, unable to muster any air defense. On 29 December 1972, Le Duc Tho returned to the table in Paris and agree to everything we asked. We agreed to one condition – NVA troops could remain in the South. Nixon promise President Thieu that if the NVA moved out of their positions we would return and defend them.
What I just described is, by any standard, a military victory.
However, the Democrats could not allow a Nixon victory. They hounded him from office and used their majority in Congress to cut security assistance to South Vietnam from $1.4B to $700M, ensuring that they would be unable to defend against another attack. To add insurance, the Congress added the Case Church amendment to the 1975 Defense Appropriation Bill precluding the US military from any action in, over or in the waters of North or South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.
Democrats (some of the same people – Kennedy, Murtha, Obey, Byrd) are in the same position with regard to Iraq.
2:47 pm
sorry about the typos and writeos
Linebacker was a operation over North Vietnam.
The NVA lost half of their artillery.
3:51 am
“We won the Vietnam War.”
No, the communists won the Vietnam war. This can be seen by the fact that they control all the territory.
Why pretend that war isn’t as much about the political circumstances that it is fought in as the military force that can be brought to bear? Your country isn’t good at long wars. Very few are, at least when they are wars in foreign countries. The population gets bored, politicians start to drift away from the lack of short term victories, they start to think of their long term futures as they watch public support drift away. If they didn’t have to think of re-election things might be different, but that’s not a good direction to go in, is it?
Short and direct wars are your forte. Small ones where the public are hardly involved work well. Ones where the people genuinely believe that they are in mortal, fight-for-your-life danger work. “Cabinet wars” just don’t work so well in a liberal democracy. After the initial hype, people just didn’t think that Vietman was worth it. The same has happened to Iraq. The same would happen for any war of choice. It happens to any liberal democracy that tries this stuff.
That’s not a comment on the military, it is a comment on the populace and politicians who represent them. And it isn’t a bad thing, because to change it you would have to control the population, propegandize them more or simply ignore their wishes, petulant and ignorant though they may be.