Like Vietnam - in more ways than one

by Rishubhav

[This post was crossposted at my blog Voice from the Middle (voicefromthemiddle.wordpress.com)]

Many Democrats love to compare Iraq to Vietnam, usually with the words “disaster” and “quagmire” thrown in. Of course that kind of rhetoric has been toned down a bit as things start getting better, but in a way that improvement makes Iraq resemble Vietnam even more.

In Vietnam by the middle of 1967 things were getting to the point where it was possible for the public to imagine an end to the war, to see the light at the end of the tunnel. A large part of this was due to a new strategy of “attrition” pioneered by a General William Wesmoreland who became a celebrity of sorts, completely identified with the war and its conduct. Sound familiar? It should. Replace “attrition” with “surge” and Westmoreland with Petraeus, and you have a perfect description of the current state affairs in Iraq. The scary part is what came next.



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Just as things were looking up for American forces in Vietnam the Vietcong launched the Tet offensive, a suprise attack launched during the ceasefire that traditionally accompanied the Vietnamese holiday of Tet. In the runup to the attack Westmoreland had completely denied the capability of the Vietcong to launch such an offensive, and had insisted that the war was more or less won.

Militarily and strategically Westmoreland was right. The Tet offensive was a grand offensive gamble by the Vietkong, and like most such gambles it ended in military failure. Vietkong units were annihilated piecemeal and the offensive failed completely in its mission of conquering the South. However, while a military defeat the Offensive was a public relations masterstroke. The revelation that Westmoreland’s confident predictions and boasts were so much hot air completely destroyed public confidence in the government and its waging of the war.

The result was that when Westmoreland requested more troops to help push the offensive his request was denied after much debate within the White House staff over the poltitical repercussions such a move would have. That cat was already out of the bag - shortly after, and as a direct result of the Tet Offensive Johnson announced that he would not seek his party’s nomination for President. In 1968 Nixon ran for, and won the Presidency with a slogan of securing “peace with honor”, and the rest is history - Nixon was forced to fight an extended retreat that cost thousands of American lives, and resulted in South Vietnam being overrun right after the last American troops left.

Iraq hasn’t gotten to that point… yet. One bright spot is that chastened by the memory of “Mission Accomplished” and “Bring them on” the Administration and military are much more cautious about the situation than Westmoreland was. However, much like in the fateful days before Tet today’s public has invested a lot in Petraeus and the surge, and should things turn sour even slightly the resulting shift in public opinion would likely be massive.

The danger here is real. Islamist terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda clearly have no problems with manipulating the internal politics of Western nations - remember the Madrid train bombings, and as devoted students of insurgency they cannot have missed the lesson of Tet. Thankfully Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been dealt a severe blow as a result of the surge and the various tribal “awakening councils”, but they are far from the only threat in the region. We currently have an uneasy truce with the Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, which has contributed to the recent progress, but remember that the Tet Offensive too was launched in violation of a truce.

In the end the lesson is this: Should the attack come (and hopefully this entire post will be completely wrong and it won’t) we must stand our ground in Iraq, and not allow ourselves to be manipulated by our enemies. Especially with November just around the corner such short-term hysteria can have grave consequences, and this must not happen. Starting this war might have been a mistake, but it is our job to ensure that the way we finish it is not.