From
http://OpinionJournal.com
Best of the Web Today - April 7, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Vietnam's Lesson: Win
http://pennlive.com/newsflash/iraq/i...ent&&news&iraq
"Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric, warned the United States on Wednesday that Iraq would become another Vietnam-like conflict if Washington did not transfer power to 'honest Iraqis,' " the Associated Press reports from Baghdad.
So Sadr agrees with Ted Kennedy
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004916 .
What is the "lesson of Vietnam" that we keep hearing about? For foreign foes like Sadr, and Saddam Hussein before him, it is that America can be beaten in any war by appealing to fickle public opinion. For domestic "dissidents" like Kennedy, it is that it is perfectly acceptable, even "patriotic," to oppose an American war effort even after the decision has been made to go to war. But the Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...4311-9361r.htm points toward a different Vietnam lesson:
*** QUOTE ***
"Let the Iraqis kill [Sadr]," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney. "We should not kill him, but we may have to. He's trying to create an uprising. This is their Tet offensive. We're going to kill a lot of them just like we did at Tet."
*** END QUOTE ***
As the late Bob Bartley
http://www.opinionjournal.com/column.../?id=110004251 noted in November, Tet was a U.S. victory that was misunderstood as a defeat:
*** QUOTE ***
After erosion of their position during 1967, the Communists threw all of their South Vietnam guerrilla forces into attacks in more than 100 cities across the length and breadth of the country. Most spectacularly, since it came before the eyes of the Saigon press corps, a 19-man sapper squad penetrated the U.S. Embassy compound. They failed to enter the chancery building, despite early reports, and the last of them was killed or repulsed after a six-hour battle.
General William Westmoreland appeared in the shattered compound to proclaim a great victory. His televised appearance came against a backdrop of destruction throughout the country, and the American elite decided to believe not the general but their own eyes. A widely cited Wall Street Journal editorial proclaimed that "the whole Vietnam effort may be doomed, it may be falling apart beneath our feet." Walter Cronkite turned against the war, editorializing on the need for negotiation. With this home-front reaction, Tet was the turning-point in the war, the anvil of Communist victory and American defeat.
Yet in fact, Westmoreland was right, subsequent analysts have uniformly concluded. The Communist offensive was decisively repulsed. There was no general uprising in favor of the North. The South Vietnamese army did not buckle, though operating at 50% strength because of imprudent holiday leaves. The indigenous Viet Cong were destroyed, leaving the rest of the war to be conducted by troops recruited in the North.
*** END QUOTE ***
A lesson we would draw from Vietnam is that losing a war has costs that go far beyond the immediate defeat. Losing in Vietnam bred an excessive caution in foreign policy that led, among other things, to Jimmy Carter's impotent response to Iranian terrorism, Ronald Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing, George Bush's failure to finish the Gulf War, and Bill Clinton's retreat in Somalia and desultory pursuit of al Qaeda.
Sept. 11 was supposed to have changed all that, and it did--but not completely. In October 2002, after the resolution authorizing Iraq's liberation passed with strong bipartisan support, we proclaimed
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110002460 McGovernite isolationism dead. Obviously we were too optimistic. So this time let's be hortatory instead of prognosticative: For the good of the country, McGovernite isolationism must die. A decisive victory in the Iraqi "Tet," if it is widely understood as such, will deliver a crushing blow and help to liberate America from Vietnam's enfeebling legacy.
It's a Quagmire--for Sadr
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/in...rtner=USERLAND
The New York Times' John Burns, who was briefly taken hostage by Sadr's forces in Kufa, Iraq, files this report:
*** QUOTE ***
If Moktada al-Sadr has chosen a grand mosque in this Euphrates River town for a last stand against American troops, as many of his militiamen have claimed in recent days, he appears to be relying more on the will of God than anything like military discipline to protect him.
Many hundreds of militiamen in the black outfits of Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army were visible on Tuesday on roads approaching the golden-domed mosque and inside the sprawling compound leading to the inner sanctuary. But they seemed unmarshaled, at least to the layman's eye--more milling about than militant. . . .
Some of the militiamen were in their 50's and 60's, but most were young, some no more than 12 or 13. Weapons training among them appeared virtually nonexistent; Kalashnikovs with loaded magazines and safety catches off were nonchalantly waved in the air.
*** END QUOTE ***
It sounds as if those here who are shouting "quagmire" may soon end up with egg on their faces.
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