"Never worked in the past, you can't eradicate guerrillas that way...but based on your hatred for the Arabs, I suppose you think we should run Iraq as a giant prison rather than attempt to give them some sort of chance as a democracy>?"
Ever followed a lot of the methods used by the British to control the Arabs in Palestine before WWII and by the French in Algeria after their retreat from SE Asia? Did you know that one of the methods that the British used in Palestine to deter uprisings was that when insurgents were killed, their bodies were wrapped in pig-skin and buried in secret? A lot of Muslims believe that denies you the martyrdom reward in the afterlife. After using that tactic a few times, insurgent attacks became very sparse. As for the French in Algeria they had the insurgency there shattered through the use of torture, military tribunals, and summary executions combined with intensive military operations. The will of their enemy disintegrated. But like the USA in Vietnam, the French caved in to political pressure and abandoned a war they could've won. Defeat was litterally snatched from the jaws of victory. Whether it's a conventional, or insurgency type conflict, you can only win with a massive dose of effectively applied ruthlessness and viciousness.
But like the USA in Vietnam, the French caved in to political pressure and abandoned a war they could've won.
_____By the time Nixon came into office, LBJ had squandered the political consensus on the Viet Nam War...all Nixon could do was organize an orderly retreat and attempt to train the South Vietnamese to take over.
..but the fall of Viet Nam occurred because of Watergate...Nixon could not order the resumption of the bombing of North Viet Nam which would have prevented the NVA regulars from invading the South...
in this one case, America did let down an ally but only after sacrificing hundreds of thousands in killed and wounded and only because of the political effect of an unrelated scandal, Watergate...if Nixon hadn't been forced to resign by this scandal, he would have saved South Vietnam...as he did Israel.