Invoking Vietnam to Skirt Iraq
By Siddique Malik.
Louisville, KY
smalik94@hotmail.com

On May 1, 2003, less than two months after launching the Iraq war, President Bush declared the mission accomplished. During those tumultuous days, questioning war was quickly labeled as being pro-terrorism. The talk of the possibility of the Iraq war turning into another Vietnam-like fiasco was frowned upon.
More than four years later, the mission is still unaccomplished. Moreover, the President is drawing parallels between the two wars. He was wrong when he made the “mission-accomplished” announcement on board a Navy ship after creating the drama of landing on it. He and his staff thought that the pictures of him emerging on the deck, dressed in a Navy jacket, and declaring victory in front of the soldiers, would create impressive images to be used in the 2004 presidential campaign. Little did they know that the war was going to take such a bad turn that they would be bending over backwards to hide these pictures and avoid any mention of this event. Foresight and wisdom were completely missing from the picture.
The President is wrong again. There are differences between the Vietnam fiasco and the Iraq debacle. As a matter of fact the Iraq situation is much worse than the Vietnam disaster.
The Vietnam War had a national and international purpose. Communism was on the march in South East Asia, and a case could have been made for efforts to stop this encroachment. No sloppy intelligence was allowed to enter the decision-making process over Vietnam. On the other hand, President Bush was personally hung up on starting the Iraq war. He told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was harboring terrorists while he knew that this was untrue. The excuse of sloppy intelligence is just a sloppy excuse that does not befit the holder of the world’s most powerful office.
The other difference is in the exit options. When America left Vietnam, it did not leave behind an Iran, a country imbued with religious hatred and bent upon developing military nuclear power. Yes, terrible atrocities took place in the region and millions died at the hands of the murderous Khmer Rouge. But this region did not have 14 centuries old sectarian animosities. Otherwise, the carnage would have been even bigger.
If we leave Iraq abruptly, the subsequent sectarian conflicts would engulf the entire region and possibly spread from Turkey to Pakistan and from Morocco to Egypt. Iran would fill the vacuum, quickly becoming the sole and unquestioned power in the region. Its quest for military nuclear prowess would become virtually unstoppable, because it would have no fear. Having just fled the region, the US would be in no position to return to it and invade Iran. President Bush or his successor might order air strikes on Iran but this action would accomplish nothing except inducing more instability into the region. Infuriated by the US air strikes, Iran would fire nuclear-armed missiles in all possible directions the moment it develops them.
It would not be a cold war like situation in which sanity prevailed in Moscow and all Western capitals. Despite immense dislike of each other, the USSR and the West made diligent efforts to ensue that the cold war’s temperature did not rise. Slightest irritants in relationships were discussed urgently and thoroughly. On the other hand, the Iranian leadership truly believes that it takes its orders from Allah. If Iran has nuclear weapons and one night the “grand” Ayatollah eats too much before sleeping and the indigestion causes him to have strange dreams, he might wake up and interpret his dreams as a divine instruction to press the nuclear button. Being a religion-based tyranny, there would be no room inside Iran for discussions over the Ayatollah’s conclusions. No efforts would be made to discuss the Ayatollah’s “indigestion” with the infidels of the “satanic” West.
This is the extent of the danger to which President Bush has subjected the US and the entire free world, and this highlights the differences between the Vietnam and Iraq wars from yet another angle. America lost in Vietnam but only after considerably denting the prospects of the entire South East Asia being overrun by Communism. The energy spent in pursuing the Viet Cong in hot, humid and dangerous jungles of Vietnam were not a complete loss.
On the other hand, not only has the Iraq misadventure been a complete wastage of energies, it has actually made America and the free world less safe. Too many lives have been sacrificed and too many financial resources consumed against an enemy that did no exist: WMDs and Saddam’s link with terrorism. Iran, a country that would have been afraid of America’s might while secretly pursuing nuclear power, is openly seeking this capability. It is loving the silver platter on which we have handed it the entire region.
Therefore, despite the obvious similarities of death and destruction, there are major differences between the Vietnam and Iraq wars. We just cannot leave Iraq with our diplomats crammed in a helicopter taking off from the rooftop of our embassy and assume the case is closed. We have no choice but to remain miserably mired in Iraq for many decades.
Now, when President Bush equates the Iraq and Vietnam debacles, he is just talking about the tip of the iceberg that he has injected into a sea of bigotry, tyranny and suppression. His attempt to liken these two wars amounts to invoking the Vietnam adventure to hide the failures of the Iraq misadventure. President Bush is an expert on deflecting issues and he is doing it again.
Meanwhile, Americans deserve to know if President Bush or any of his officers foresaw this dismal situation at the war planning stage, if, in earnest, there was one? “What did the president know and when did he know it”?

 

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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