David Broder gives us a history lesson. It must be history week at the Washington Post. This time both Korea and Vietnam are brought up.
If you think there is an echo in the air when officials discuss the twin crises in Iraq and Lebanon, you're not hearing things. In both cases the argument for carrying on the destructive current policy comes down to a claim that "we can't afford to let the other guy win."
President Bush says over and over that cutting short the occupation of Iraq would turn that country over to the terrorists and embolden them to carry their wicked plots ever closer to our shores. He also endorses — implicitly — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's view that an early cease-fire with Lebanon would strengthen Hezbollah and make its prime sponsor, Iran, even more of a threat to its neighbors. That political support enables Olmert to wage the kind of campaign he has in Lebanon.
Ok, so far, Broder doesn't agree with the policies in either conflict. I happen to think he's wrong – more on that later – but he has an opinion. He criticizes the lack of a massive, overwhelming attack in both conflicts. Implication: if we had hit hard enough we would have won. Here's the part where I think he really loses it:
But once the hope for victory is gone, the issue remains: What do you do? The answer from Bush and from Olmert is: Carry on. Do not waver. And do not question the logic of prolonging the agony.
History suggests that is not always the right answer. The United States has failed to achieve victory in two of its recent wars — with very different results.
In Korea, we settled for a stalemate, a line dividing North and South Korea, after Gen. Douglas MacArthur's rush northward brought the Chinese into the fight and led to a terrifying retreat by American forces. No one would claim that has been an ideal solution. North Korea remains a communist dictatorship, and its nuclear ambitions and missile development are a continuing problem for the United States and North Korea's Asian neighbors.
On the other hand, North Korea has not moved against South Korea for more than 50 years; the peace has held.
The other war was in Vietnam. (I know there are still people who believe it was lost in Washington, on Capitol Hill, when it could have been won in the jungles. But the fact is that we withdrew, and Saigon fell.) It is hard to remember now, but at the time, we were told that if Ho Chi Minh prevailed, communism would roll south through Malaysia and spread to the Philippines and threaten Australia — to say nothing of American influence in the Pacific. We took those warnings seriously, and so it was a bitter moment when the Viet Cong occupied the old American Embassy in Saigon.
And today the embassy is again open — in Hanoi — and the United States is trading freely with a united Vietnam.
The point is that history and economics have their own logic. A military mission that fails to yield a victory does not always presage disaster. Today, virtually no one argues that we should have continued fighting the North Koreans or the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.
Can we think about the costs of carrying on, without an end in sight, against Hezbollah and the insurgents in Iraq?
Reasoning by analogy is always tricky. In this case, I think he misses one huge, glaring point. In neither Korea or in Vietnam was the country we fought trying to dominate the world. Selective memory is a dangerous thing in trying to use an analogy.
That's the avowed purpose of the Islamists. To dominate the world.
So I would pose a counter-question: Can we think about the costs of not carrying on?
Broder's analogy fails on that point alone.
