Eugene Volokh is trying to find out if what Ted Kennedy says he meant bears any resemblance to what he actually said when he (Kennedy) compared Iraq to Vietnam.
There's something heroic about untangling political parisology, but I'm more interested in the substance of the question: Does the situation in Iraq today have meaningful similarities with Vietnam in, say, the early 1970s?
The strategic context is obviously different:
South Vietnam was an American ally that was threatened by its Northern communist countrymen. Iraq was an enemy of the US, the head of which threatened regional stability. The underlying theory in Vietnam was containment - the interest in reducing the growth of communist regimes in the US sphere of influence. The theory of Iraq is a kind of virtuous domino effect - democracy will break out in the Middle East once a single Arab state gets bitten by the bug. Vietnam was in the context of the cold war. Iraq is in the context of the War on Terror. One thing they do have in common is that an abrupt and unilateral US withdrawal would be a bad thing - genocide in Cambodia; civil war resolved by a theocracy in Iraq.
But these are irrelevant differences as far as the ghost of Vietnam is concerned. The operative term in this debate is "quagmire." This, I think, is a situation in which:
- Political objectives are confused and/or vague, complicating and frustrating the purpose of military operations
- Tactical and operational superiority are overtaken by the ability to sustain steady losses
- Domestic support is dwindling as the costs become more apparent than the benefits
- Pulling out is politically unacceptable, as it would be seen as conceding defeat
- All these reinforce each other, creating a syndrome
Ironically, the Powell doctrine is intended to avoid precisely a quagmire syndrome. Swift, overwhelming military action to accomplish a specific goal, followed by a clear exit strategy limits military engagement to what it is most useful for: winning wars and dictating terms of surrender and peace.
There is certainly the possibility that Iraq will become a political and military quagmire. It's really too early to tell, but some aspects of this adventure worry me.
I've discussed this with a cousin of mine who is a high-ranking US Army officer in Iraq. My main point was that there aren't clear metrics of progress for the occupation. And since the press focuses on bad news, public opinion will easily be influenced by the number of Americans killed rather than the number of Iraqis saved (in one way or the other). Armies are built to either conquer or hold positions, and it's generally pretty clear if they're succeeding or not. We may have opinions on whether the occupation is going well or poorly, but there's no way for the American public to know for sure.
This war is also unusual (though probably not unprecedented) in that its main purpose was to overthrow, not just defeat, the enemy's government. When the Allies defeated Japan and Germany, they dictated terms of peace to a provisional government and assured continuity of civil order. Saddam's government never actually surrendered, and so the transfer of power was more like what you'd see after a coup or rebellion. The Iraqis may have viewed the Saddam regime as immoral, repressive, brutal, and bloody (and it was all of those things), but they are also likely to view the American interim regime as illegitimate.
On the other hand, the exit criteria for the coalition administration are pretty benign - the US isn't looking to plunder or even humiliate the Iraqis. They want there to be a representative, Iraqi government that won't support terror, build weapons of mass destruction, or attack any of its neighbors.
The quagmire scenario is predicated on the harm caused by organized Iraqi resistance overtaking the benefit of US nation-building, with anarchy or civil war being the likely alternative to continued occupation. It may be that the Bush administration has overestimated Iraqi willingness to create a better nation as a result of outside "encouragement." If so, a quagmire may be just what we get. Or a unilateral withdrawal that leads to a bloodbath.
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