gandalf: I want to isolate your comment about Vietnam and the aftermath to illustrate the problems with “misperceptions”.
The US military in Vietnam never lost a battle. Not one. The Tet Offensive of 1968, which Walter Cronkite (among other US newspeople) characterized as a US “defeat” was exactly the opposite. The US destroyed the fighting capability of the Viet Cong for the balance of the war and inflicted such massive casualties on the North Vietnamese Army that it took them years to rebuild their offensive capabilities. However, the American people believed that Tet was a defeat for US forces and the pressure increased on the homefront to end the war and get the troops home.
In 1972, the US launched the “Linebacker” campaigns, a series of sustained bombings against Hanoi and Haiphong Harbor (the main transhipment point for Soviet and Chinese military supplies and materiel). In large part, the campaign was designed to break the deadlock for the US/North Vietnamese peace talks and the overwhelming display of US firepower worked superbly.
Lastly, and most importantly, from 1973 through 1975, during Nixon’s “Vietnamization” program (the tranisition from US led operations to South Vietnamese led operations) the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam – the South Vietnamese forces) forces more than held their own against the North Vietnamese Army (communist). However, this success was entirely predicated on continued US military aid and materiel, and, in 1975 Congress pulled the plug on aid to South Vietnam and precipitated the complete collapse of the South.
I bring all of this up for two reasons: (1) Vietnam was not “Vietnam” in the conventionally held sense, meaning most of what we’ve been told or taught is in direct contradiction of the actual facts of the war, and (2) The parallels exist between Vietnam and Iraq, but not in the way(s) most people think.
Our precipitate withdrawal from Southeast Asia allowed the predations of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouges, as well as those of the North Vietnamese. It also started a long slide for US prestige and power on the world stage, culminating with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the hostage crisis in Iran, both in 1979.
I would argue that our strategic position is not as awful as you imagine. I don’t think our bellicosity with Iran is the best approach, but I don’t think we’ll get much out of attempting to engage the people, either. The hardliners control that country in every sense of the word, and breaking that control will take years, if not a decade or longer. We don’t have that kind of time when it comes to Iran’s timeline to develop the bomb (and I would agree that they probably are already in possession of one or more). We need to develop a strategy that works now and includes possible options that the Europeans won’t countenance, such as military strikes or action by proxy (Israel).
I was also being serious when I asked your opinion of what the heck “American Realism” is. What school of thought is this? Wilsonian? Emersonian? Kissingerian?
