How Republicans win if we lose in Iraq
Bush and the GOP are shifting tactics just like Nixon did with Vietnam -- to win the next election, not the war.
Rosa Brooks
LA Times
IF YOU THINK the growing similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is tragic but inadvertent, you're not being cynical enough.
During the first years of the Iraq war, any resemblance to Vietnam was the result of the Bush administration's disastrous miscalculations. But today, the Iraq war is looking more and more like the Vietnam War because that's exactly what suits the White House.
Writing on this page Thursday, Jonah Goldberg praised President Bush for telling Americans that "he will settle for nothing less than winning" in Iraq. Sure, Goldberg acknowledged, Bush "may be deluding himself," but at least he's "trying to win." No, he's not.
It's clear that Bush knows perfectly well there's no possibility of "winning" anymore, so apparently he's seeking in Iraq exactly what Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sought in Vietnam before the 1972 election: a face-saving "decent interval" before the virtually inevitable collapse of the U.S.-backed government.
By 1971, Nixon and Kissinger understood that "winning" in Vietnam was no longer in the cards — so they shifted from trying to win the war to trying to win the next election. As Nixon put it in March 1971: "We can't have [the South Vietnamese] knocked over brutally … " Kissinger finished the thought " … before the election." So Nixon and Kissinger pushed the South Vietnamese to "stand on their own," promising we'd support them if necessary. But at the same time, Kissinger assured the North Vietnamese — through China — that the U.S. wouldn't intervene to prevent a North Vietnamese victory — as long as that victory didn't come with embarrassing speed.
As historian Jeffrey Kimball has documented, Kissinger's talking points for his first meeting with Chinese Premier Chou En-lai on the topic of Vietnam included a promise that the U.S. would withdraw all troops and "leave the political evolution of Vietnam to the Vietnamese." The U.S. would "let objective realities" — North Vietnamese military superiority — "shape the political future." In the margins of his briefing book, Kissinger scrawled a handwritten elaboration for Chou: "We want a decent interval. You have our assurance."
The "decent interval" strategy worked. By declaring that "peace was at hand," Kissinger took the wind out of antiwar Democrat George McGovern's sails, and Nixon won reelection. And though Nixon himself later fell to the Watergate scandal, the Republican Party successfully used the "decent interval" to cast the Democratic Party in the role of spoiler.
(Continued, here.)
Rosa Brooks
LA Times
IF YOU THINK the growing similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is tragic but inadvertent, you're not being cynical enough.
During the first years of the Iraq war, any resemblance to Vietnam was the result of the Bush administration's disastrous miscalculations. But today, the Iraq war is looking more and more like the Vietnam War because that's exactly what suits the White House.
Writing on this page Thursday, Jonah Goldberg praised President Bush for telling Americans that "he will settle for nothing less than winning" in Iraq. Sure, Goldberg acknowledged, Bush "may be deluding himself," but at least he's "trying to win." No, he's not.
It's clear that Bush knows perfectly well there's no possibility of "winning" anymore, so apparently he's seeking in Iraq exactly what Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sought in Vietnam before the 1972 election: a face-saving "decent interval" before the virtually inevitable collapse of the U.S.-backed government.
By 1971, Nixon and Kissinger understood that "winning" in Vietnam was no longer in the cards — so they shifted from trying to win the war to trying to win the next election. As Nixon put it in March 1971: "We can't have [the South Vietnamese] knocked over brutally … " Kissinger finished the thought " … before the election." So Nixon and Kissinger pushed the South Vietnamese to "stand on their own," promising we'd support them if necessary. But at the same time, Kissinger assured the North Vietnamese — through China — that the U.S. wouldn't intervene to prevent a North Vietnamese victory — as long as that victory didn't come with embarrassing speed.
As historian Jeffrey Kimball has documented, Kissinger's talking points for his first meeting with Chinese Premier Chou En-lai on the topic of Vietnam included a promise that the U.S. would withdraw all troops and "leave the political evolution of Vietnam to the Vietnamese." The U.S. would "let objective realities" — North Vietnamese military superiority — "shape the political future." In the margins of his briefing book, Kissinger scrawled a handwritten elaboration for Chou: "We want a decent interval. You have our assurance."
The "decent interval" strategy worked. By declaring that "peace was at hand," Kissinger took the wind out of antiwar Democrat George McGovern's sails, and Nixon won reelection. And though Nixon himself later fell to the Watergate scandal, the Republican Party successfully used the "decent interval" to cast the Democratic Party in the role of spoiler.
(Continued, here.)
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