Is Iraq Another Vietnam?--Historian Robert Brigham speaks out.

Frontpagemag ^ | 10-20-06 | Rick Shenkman

[SJackson]

He's co-authored a book with Robert McNamara and was the first Western scholar to be given access to the archives in Hanoi, so it isn't surprising to learn that Vassar historian Robert K. Brigham sees parallels between Vietnam and Iraq. But he fairly shocked a small audience in Seattle today when he claimed that Condoleezza Rice is following in the footsteps of Henry Kissinger in Iraq, reversing the course of Bush administration foreign policy 180 degrees. Neo-con ideology is out, Metternich is in.

Brigham, who shared his perspective with scholars at the Army War College last Friday, says that Secretary of State Rice has adopted a Kissingerian 19th century balance-of-power approach to Iraq starkly at odds with the administration's democratic rhetoric in the first term. It's 1815 again, he says, referring to the Congress of Vienna, with Condoleezza Rice playing the part of Austrian Foreign Minister Metternich. Brigham's thesis is that Rice apparently has decided that the only way out of Iraq is for the United States to work covertly in league with Iran and Syria in the hope that they can control the chief groups of insurgents. In exchange for their help, he says, Rice is likely promising Iran and Syria through back channels the chance to become regional major players with American help.

This approach makes a certain amount of sense, he says, noting that both countries might hope to follow the example of China, whose economy began skyrocketing after detente with the United States in the 1970s. Nodding his head in wonderment he observed several times that China's per capita income has quadrupled since the 1970s. If Iran and Syria could achieve similar results their regimes could hope to remain in power forever.

But he also expressed reservations about Rice's old-fashioned approach, noting that it may not be possible for Iran and Syria to control the non-state actors in Iraq. It's not clear he said that we know nearly enough about the insurgents as we should to follow this course. While a deal could be struck with them if their end game is to run a government, no deal may be possible if they have some other goal in mind. And the sad fact is American intelligence is so weak in Iraq that the United States government doesn't really know what the insurgents want.

In all events a democratic Iraq is now an unlikely possibility. The best the United States may be able to hope for is a "decent interval" between the time we draw down our forces in Iraq and Syria and Iran become dominant there. He asked point blank if this is Secretary of State Rice's limited goal now. If so, it's Vietnam all over again. As Brigham recounted, Henry Kissinger in the 1970s concluded that because American popular support for the Vietnam War was declining the United States could not win. The solution therefore was to ask Moscow and Beijing for help in restraining North Vietnam while the United States slowly began the withdrawal of American forces. Kissinger always denied asking the Soviets and the Chinese for help in arranging a "decent interval." But documents released in the last year confirm that he did, says Brigham. Chinese leader Chou En-lai asked Kissinger how long a period this decent interval needed to last. Eighteen months, said Kissinger. And that is precisely how long the North Vietnamese waited before beginning their final push to conquer South Vietnam, Brigham noted.

Bob Woodward recently reported in State of Denial that Kissinger has become one of President Bush's chief advisors. Woodward has concluded this means the president plans to follow Kissinger's oft-stated Vietnam line that we should fight until victory. Brigham says Woodward needs to go back and read some history books. He'd discover that while Kissinger was telling the American public that victory in Vietnam was essential, he was secretly arranging to allow North Vietnam to retain 100,000 troops in the South after the United States withdrew, a provision that turned up in the Paris peace accords. That, says Brigham, doesn't sound like victory.

Brigham, who is friends with Bob McNamara and the author of the recently published book, Is Iraq Another Vietnam?, admits there are thousands of ways Iraq and Vietnam are different. But he says he's struck by several parallels. The strategy of clearing and holding ground is the same as in Vietnam. The rhetoric is the same; we will stand down as Iraqis stand up is classic Vietnam talk. And likely as not this war will end in failure as Vietnam did, with similar resulting recriminations in America for a generation.

The economic consequences could also be equally devastating. Remember the bad economy of the 1970s? It's coming, he predicted. Once again we have acted as if we could have both guns and butter. But by another economic measure the wars are dissimilar. Vietnam in inflation-adjusted dollars cost roughly half a trillion dollars over a period of twenty years. Iraq has cost more than that in less than four.

[popdonnelly]

No more "no-win" wars.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Neo-con ideology is out, Metternich is in."

I'll hold out for Von Clausewitz to show up.

[MNJohnnie]

Some Historian. He is completely wrong in his analysis. There is nothing here of merit. Another psuedo intellectual shaping his thoughts to pander to the Democrat Noise Machines emotion based perconceptions about Iraq.

We are all ready well on our way to winning the war in Iraq. Any intellectually HONEST History would know this by looking at the data. NOW the Democrat noise machine is desperate to spin victory into defeat to avoid admiting they were wrong about Iraq from the start. This guy shows he is NO historian making these sorts of psuedo intellectual perdictions and nosenical psuedo historical claims. The shoddy economy of the 1970s had a number of causes, Vietnam was NOT one of them.

It is pretty incredible watching how the US "News" Media IS continually trying to "Tet" the mission in Iraq. Tet, for those of you who do not know it. was a North Vietnam Offensive against South Vietnam during the January 1968 Tet Holiday . It was a bloody defeat for the North Vietnamese that shattered their Viet Cong guerilla units. However, because of the reporting in the US "News" media, the public perception of the time was that Tet was an clear indication the USA had lost the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1715700/posts

American casualties in Iraq rise sharply
The Washington Post ^ | October 8 2006 | Ann Scott Tyson


This story from the Washington Post is a perfect example of how the Junk Media is trying to repeat the same scenario in Iraq. Due to petulant dislike for the President and a fanatical feverish need to re-establish the Democrat Party in power the US Media has simply pull out ALL the stops to lie, distort and mislead on Iraq. Statistically it is nonsense to draw any conclusion on a war based on a single month's data. April 1945 was the bloodiest single month of the World War 2 for the USA. 4 months later the war ended. 1 month blip in casualty figures is utterly irrelevant as an indicator of long term trends. Notice, the Washington Post suddenly wants to site casualty figures where before they always were measuring deaths. Of course they do that because the casualty increase sounds so dramatic and scary. It written that way to have the reader make negative assumptions about the war.

It is also totally misleading and intellectually dishonest to not put the casualty figures in context. Given the nature of the operations ongoing at this point of the war the increase in casualties is a completely understandable and expected outcome. We are engaging in offensive operations in Urban terrain. EVEN the Washington Post was forced to admit the last time we took casualties like this was when the Marines cleaned out Fallugha.

Nothing else in war generates casualties, major and minor, like Urban combat. Not only does the combat take pace at shocking close ranges, but there is a huge increase in minor wounds. Sprains, broken bones, contusions, bruises etc are common in Urban Combat. Just too many hard surface for people to run into. Then there is the fact we are expanding operations to clean out the Shi'a militia. Adding them to the to do list, we are upping the tempo of our operations. The casualties, while terribly painful in individual human terms, are in terms of militarily conflict insignificant. The Do Nothings the Right wings Neo Isolationists on the left are trying to manufacture into a New Tet

The Post contention in this "news" story is that the effort in Iraq is a disaster. That things are going from bad to worse and nothing we can do will change it. The point of this story is to validate the spin from the Democrat Leadership that the US has no choice but to cut and run from Iraq. It complete nonsense.
Of course Casualties and attacks are up. We are engaging in offensive operations in Urban terrain. NOTHING in war generates minor casualties, sprains, broken bones, contusions etc like Urban Combat. Just too many hard surface for people to run into. Plus since we are expanding operations to clean out the Shi'a militia we are upping the tempo of our operations. Militarily this an insignificant blip on the screen which the Neo Isolationists and fevered Know Nothings are trying to manufacture into a New Tet

I think we can define the American Public as P.A.D.D. Policy Attention Deficit Disorder. We are winning in Iraq. The Terrorists and Militia's have been unable to evolve beyond state 1 of Guerrilla War Counter Insurgency is slow, painful work. But the progress is all on our side. The "Insurgents" has demonstrated no ability to politically or militarily evolve. Guerrilla war strategy consists of 3 phases.

1. Stage one: very small unit harassment actions.

2. Stage two: continuation of state one with an evolution to large units actions. Development of larger and large geographic areas fully under Guerrilla control.

3. Stage three: conventional warfare between large units.

The Terrorists are still stuck in stage one of Guerrilla Warfare. They can wreck stuff and kill people they cannot grow. They cannot take and hold ground or engage in anything beyond small scale hit and run attacks. Their failure to develop a shadow political structure to act as a polar opposite to the Iraqi Government is their fatal flaw. They simply lack the structure or local support network needed to move beyond state one Problem is thanks to the Junk Media and the Treason of the Democrat Party Leadership most Americans have no clue how well the mission is actually going. All they see is the thing that are seemingly going wrong. They are not actually going wrong, that is actually how combat works.
It is incredibly odd how Democrats, via their mouthpieces in the Junk Media, demand a level of perfection in Military operations that NO Journalist or Politician could ever live up to in their own professional spheres. Odd how Americans, who live with a very high level of incompetent in their government, their media, their day to day lives are so surprised and upset to discover war does work on a perfectly flawless time table. They seem to think war should work like their two hour Hollywood action movies told them it did. 2 Hours, bad guys dead, sympathy frag of supporting actor, hero gets girl and lives happily ever after. These absurd expectations explain how it is Americans get "war weary" so very very rapidly. It is one of the biggest Achilles heels of US Foreign Policy. Our foes count on us getting bored with it all and just going home. I guess we could call it the America's Policy Attention Deficit Disorder.
Counter Terrorism (or Counter Insurgency) is as much about politics as it is about war. Conventional Military often find them incredibly frustrating because they are usually a case of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, pause, repeat. Conventional Military people think in terms of go there, kill them, wreck their stuff, make them stop pissing us off. Counter Insurgency does not work that way. Counter Insurgency works by making the local political structure strong enough to contain or beak the Insurgency. THAT is a slow painful process.
It is made a lot hard in Iraq by the hyper negative Media coverage and excessive nonsense spewed out by Domestic Politicians using the war because they think it will help them politically. I suspect that if we win Nov 7th, the Iraq mission is won. By 2009 the Iraqis political structure will be strong enough to stand on its own with minimal US support. Probably Iraq security forces stiffened with US SOF support teams. However, if the Democrats win November 7th, we can count on them "Teting" us right into another Vietnam style defeat. Iraq will be another war won militarily lost for perceived domestic partisan political advantage.

[MNJohnnie]

No more mindlessly accepting Know Nothing propaganda from people too arrogant to admit they have been all wrong about Iraq from the start as "Fact". This article is utter nonsense. Not one intellectually meritorious point in the whole nonsensical spew.

[ravingnutter]

The only parallel I see is the aging hippies trying to relive their "glory days" as protestors. They destroyed so many brain cells with drugs that they cannot process simple logic.

[kabar]

The best the United States may be able to hope for is a "decent interval" between the time we draw down our forces in Iraq and Syria and Iran become dominant there.

Iran will never become dominant in Iraq. Different culture, different language, different history. Any Iranian attempt to dominate Iraq would result in the uniting of Iraqis of all stripes against the Iranians. They fought an eight year war against one another less than 20ears ago. The memory of that war and over a million casualties is still fresh in the minds of the participants.

Neither Syria or Iran has the ability to project sufficient power to dominate Iraq.

[kabar]

The MSM is portraying the increased October American casualty figures as a sign that the war is going badly. They don't place it in context. In actuality, our casualties have been declining since 2004.

2004

Deaths -- 848; wounded -- 7,998

2005

Deaths -- 846 ; wounded -- 5,943

2006 to date

Deaths -- 607; wounded --4,338

[Poincare]

Very different wars

Yet to play the game let's say that Iraq is South Vietnam and Iran is North Vietnam in as much as it is supplying fighters and materiel (high-tech IED's etc.). Why the aitch aren't we bombing them (Iran)--or at least the supply lines?

[SJackson]

The greatest similarity is the press, which in 1968 turned a clear military victory into a defeat.

A vital difference, we didn't go to Iraq to free the Iraqis, we could have done that in 1991, we went to confront a perceived threat, and we accomplished the mission. Yes, I know we didn't find WMDs, but Sadaam was a longstanding threat. Standing up a free, democratic, we should have been talking about liberty and tolerance, not democracy, is an admirable secondary objective. I wouldn't have supported it, but we could have simple rounded up Baath party members, executed them, and left the place in a shambles. This won't go on beyond the 08 election, likely will be settled long before then. Either the Iraqi army and police will successfully stand up and take control of the contry, or they won't. Hopefully the rumors of a James Baker immediate withdrawl aren't true, and they'll have another year ot two to accomplish it.

[popdonnelly]

"The only parallel I see is the aging hippies trying to relive their "glory days" as protestors."

I have no doubt a lot of them are experiencing flashbacks.

[TheCrusader]

I don't know if it's fair to compare Iraq to Vietnam, (other than the fact both wars were unpopular with liberal cowards, and both wars were subverted by our enemies within). But to me it seems we tried a lot harder to win Vietnam than we do in Iraq. America is playing ball with those utterly corrupt Iraqis by allowing the various "unoffical" militias to hold onto power and dictate policy.

If we really wanted to "win" in Iraq there would be at least another 50 - 80 thousand U.S. troops there to squash the insurgency and pacify that medieval, sub-human hell hole. So it's difficult to see exactly what our strategy in Iraq is, and what our objectives are. In spite of having the bravest, most experienced and best troops in the world, (by far), we see a rampant, bloody insurgency that is probably in truth a civil war. It's obvious we lack sufficient manpower in Iraq to get the job done properly and swiftly, which should always be the objective in war. Maybe our leaders don't even know exactly what the "job" is.

If we really wanted to win in Iraq, instead of just be a sort of police force while the Iraqis figure out what they want and how they want to go about it, there would be less restrictive "rules of engagement" that let the enemy off the hook while crucifying our own warriors. (How many of our brave troops aer now being charged with 'murder' and various other "war crimes"? And how many thousands of captive insurgents have been released after our guys shed their sweat and blood to get them?) Heck, we just released al Sard's top leiutenant in some political deal. So I would say one of the main differences between Iraq and Vietnam is that our Presidents back then, liberal and conservative, had more b@!!s and took winning in Vietnam much more serious than we do in Iraq. Inspite of being hounded by the anti-American media, hippies and other counter-productive forces, we placed five hundred thousand troops in Vietnam, continued our heavy B-52 carpet bombing all through the war, and had far less restrictive "rules of engagement" than we have in Iraq. I'm not saying that the Iraqi insurgents and terrorists are winning, but I am saying that political correctness and gross mismanagement are.

[norton]

Just the suggestion of giving the duplicitous POS kissinger an ear within the administration gives me severe tremors.

[supremedoctrine]

I have no reasons nor means to doubt the main premises or conclusions of this book as laid out here: it seems that FINALLY someone has come up with an historical parallel
that time alone has told (as "time will tell") us can applied to it. The original rhetoric and suppositions just had to be allowed the time to fail, and all the accomodations had to be made, new scenarios drawn up, new players (Iran and Syria) added into or subtracted from the mix, and allotted new powers and new influences. "A democratic Iraq now seems unlikely". That was obvious to any who did not have stars in their eyes at the beginning. And I would add one more feature that is not gone into here (it may be developed in the book, I don't know): and that is that it seemed logical soon after it was clear that Iraqis could not at least in the short run, be expected to dissolve their tribal and religious animosities ("warring factions")
that the fate of Iraq was going to involve it being divided into three separate and autonomous countries: The Kurds (symbolically "American Iraq), and the Sunni and Shi'ites given enough land and oil-producing abilities , which would bring Iran and Syria, and whoever else, into the picture as overseers, or New Colonialists, or whatever new alliances and relationships would be worked out. That this was not seen even as a POSSIBILITY at the beginning is a disgrace and a testimony to the lack of anyone else having "a choice in the choice" besides the current Administration and their allies within Iraq. Flame away, but believe me, it WILL come to pass that Iraq will NOT be permanently unified into one homogeneous people with the same Constitution: might as well apply the old formula here as well: "if you're not with us, you're against us", and there will be at least at many "against" us there as there are "with us".

[SJackson]

That this was not seen even as a POSSIBILITY at the beginning is a disgrace and a testimony to the lack of anyone else having "a choice in the choice" besides the current Administration and their allies within Iraq. Flame away, but believe me, it WILL come to pass that Iraq will NOT be permanently unified into one homogeneous people with the same Constitution: might as well apply the old formula here as well: "if you're not with us, you're against us", and there will be at least at many "against" us there as there are "with us".

It was discussed, I can remember posting several threads on the topic. Not popular as I recall, but it was out there. As was the idea of retaining the military and police rather than dissolving them, and retaining Baathist technocrats and politicians. If there's anything certain about war it's that mistakes will be made, circumstances change, and tactics are changed as necessary. The end result may well be three states. Which doesn't necessarily mean the attempt to create a single pro-western state was a mistake. Or impossible.

[Twinkie]

Frankly, some of the aging druggie hippies are now barely functional - and we don't hear much from them. It's the more highly functioning ones who have attempted to set the stage (once again in the universities) for another reindition of "Blowing in the Wind", "If I Had a Hammer" and "Bye Bye Miss American Pie". Sigh. Once again, a Democrat president gets us into a war, and once again, a Republican president is responsible for handling the fallout from it. Messy little hippies. (Their tie dyes are even air brushed now. Oh, the sentimentality of bad copycat fashion.) *Heres a little secret for DU: Their sacred cow, JFK, was an adulterer who almost got us nuked . . his lyin' during the campaign about the U.S. arsenal and intentions prompted the Russians to get very afraid because they thought Kennedy had special inside information . . so they sent missiles to Cuba . . and voila . . oh, and I almost forgot, their sacred bull, Bull Clinton,again an adulterer/liar, passed on nine opportunities to get bin Laden . . and so we get 9/11 . . and another Republican having to try to clean up Clinton's messy mess . . . never mind . . go back to sleep . . . .

[siddude]

Robert Brigham is a joke. He doen't have an understanding about the conflict in Vietnam. What makes him think he has an understanding about Iraq?

[supremedoctrine]

Not "impossible" or "a bad idea" necessarily, but not a theorem I would want to risk putting into practice because it looked "reasonable" on paper. These are supposed to be "the experts", regardless of what Administration they belong to, and what wars or military ventures they engage in in our names. This has become a VERY expensive equivalent of say, testing a new law in court. Prosecutors do it all the time. Too expensive a learning process, IMHO.

[supremedoctrine]

Robert Brigham is a joke"

Time will tell, siddude, time will tell......

[AmusedBystander]

Viet Nam was essentially a fight for freedom from colonial France that turned into a proxy war caused we picked France's side mistakenly thinking that France was our ally.

Iraq is on the brink of success, but if we don't pick a side and let them loose on their rebellious countrymen then it WILL turn into another Viet Nam.