by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
U<\/span>nder fire, the president addressed the nation Tuesday night to reassure the American people that, for all the depressing news of bombings and death, we are winning the war and a free, democratic Iraq is key to Middle East salvation.<\/p>\n Just recently, Congress grilled administration officials over the costs of the war, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was again asked to resign. Meanwhile, President Bush had assured the visiting Iraqi prime minister that neither a timetable for U.S. withdrawal nor a cutoff of support is planned.<\/p>\n All this near panic arose from continual news of bombings, beheadings and chaos in Iraq. In the roller-coaster opinion polls, the good news of the January elections, Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and an “Arab Spring” of reform is old, replaced by a long, hot summer for Americans in the Sunni Triangle.<\/p>\n The al Qaedists and former Ba’athists anticipate another impending U.S. retreat, like the 1984 flight from Lebanon or the 1993 exit from Somalia after the horrific dragging of American bodies in the streets of Mogadishu. Both pullouts, enshrined in al Qaeda propaganda, contributed to the pre-September 11, 2001, folklore that the United States lacked the stamina to defeat terrorists.<\/p>\n So the media-savvy terrorists have redirected their attacks yet again \u2014 back to American troops. Just last week, female Marines, who allay Iraqi unease over the searching of Iraqi women at checkpoints, were blown up aboard an armored truck returning to base from a checkpoint.<\/p>\n In response, the ghost of Vietnam is again being conjured. Given this tendency to compare the two wars, we really should re-examine the horror of Vietnam, specifically its final years.<\/p>\n B<\/span>y 1973, the goal of fashioning a South Korean-like, noncommunist entity in Indochina was supposedly obtained and the war over. The Paris peace agreements recognized two autonomous Vietnamese states. Almost all American prisoners were returned. The last few U.S. ground troops came home.<\/p>\n If the communist North, and its Soviet and Chinese patrons, saw 1973 as a breather rather than a peace, American officials at least promised the South material support and air cover if the communists reinvaded.<\/p>\n They did just that in spring 1975, barreling down Highway 1 with conventional Soviet tanks. Americans apparently did not want another quarter-century commitment to a second Demilitarized Zone to ward off a perpetual communist threat from the north. By 1974, a series of congressional acts radically cut funding of U.S. military support of South Vietnam. The Saigon government abruptly collapsed in April 1975.<\/p>\n More than a million refugees fled the south. Tens of thousands of boat people drowned or starved. Another million were either killed, imprisoned or sent to re-education camps. The Cambodia holocaust followed.<\/p>\n The perception of American weakness prompted communist adventurism from Afghanistan to Central America. Few in the Middle East thought there were any consequences to taking American hostages, or killing American soldiers and diplomats. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein alike little feared “the pitiful, helpless giant” (Richard Nixon’s phrase).<\/p>\n There are lessons here. When the United States has stayed on after fighting dictatorial enemies \u2014 admittedly for decades in Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea and the Balkans \u2014 progress toward democracy and prosperity ensued. Disengagement from unresolved messy problems \u2014 whether from Europe after World War I, Vietnam in 1973, Beirut after the Marine barracks bombings, Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat, or Iraq in 1991 \u2014 only left murderous chaos or the “peace” of dictators.<\/p>\n Fighting sometimes intensifies just before the end. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s horrible summer of 1864 almost broke the Union. The surprise of the Bulge cost more American lives than the 1944 drive from the Normandy beaches. Okinawa was not declared secure until a little more than two months before the Japanese surrender. It was the worst-thought-out campaign of the Pacific and cost about 50,000 American casualties.<\/p>\n Sacrifices are judged senseless by factors beyond sheer carnage. While we are, of course, tortured over the American dead of the Civil War, World War I and World War II, we nevertheless find solace that those lost ended slavery, restored the Union, stopped the kaiser, eliminated Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo, and made possible present-day South Korea.<\/p>\n O<\/span>n the other hand, we agonize as often over the much smaller losses of Vietnam, Beirut or Somalia precisely because we are not sure whether they led to any permanent improvement.<\/p>\n Those who evoke Vietnam should think carefully of the entire lesson of that tragedy. We hear daily how we once foolishly got into that chaos but rarely the lessons on how we got out.<\/p>\n This present war is not just about the Sunni Triangle, but whether reformers of the Arab world will step forward to emulate a fragile democratic Iraq that survives the jihadist counterassault. For the last three decades, Middle East autocratic regimes either attacked their neighbors or reached understandings with Islamic terrorists to shift blame for their own failures onto an apparently unconcerned United States.<\/p>\n That deeper pathology was at the root of the September 11, 2001, attacks on America. If not stopped now, it will result in many more attacks to come here at home.<\/p>\n \u00a92005 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Under fire, the president addressed the nation Tuesday night to reassure the American people that, for all the depressing news of bombings and death, we are winning the war and a free, democratic Iraq is key to Middle East salvation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[787],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-186","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4315,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/enough-is-enough\/","url_meta":{"origin":4346,"position":0},"title":"Enough is Enough","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Civilization has two choices when facing jihadists. by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services After the July 7 London bombings, some in the United Kingdom wondered if the bombing was in retaliation for Britain having troops in Iraq. Perhaps, they suggested, a withdrawal, emulating the Spanish appeasement after the March\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2005"","block_context":{"text":"July 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/july-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4600,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/see-ya-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":4346,"position":1},"title":"See Ya, Iraq?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Leaving now would be a disaster. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online \"War is a series of catastrophes that results in victory.\" \u2014 Georges Clemenceau A few conservative strategists \u2014 from the\u00a0Financial Times\u00a0to Edward Luttwak \u2014 have recently floated the idea of a strategic withdrawal from Iraq. \"Exit strategy\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2004"","block_context":{"text":"September 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/september-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8263,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-audacity-of-weakness\/","url_meta":{"origin":4346,"position":2},"title":"The Audacity of Weakness","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama\u2019s morally confused foreign policy is making the world more dangerous by the day. by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress on Tuesday to warn Americans of the anti-Western threats from theocratic \u2014 and likely to soon be nuclear \u2014 Iran. Netanyahu\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Russia"","block_context":{"text":"Russia","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/russia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3877,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/democratic-hares-no-match-for-steady-republican-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":4346,"position":3},"title":"Democratic Hares: No Match for Steady Republican Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Despite their dreams of recapturing one or both houses of Congress this November, the Democrats seem determined to reprise their poor showings in 2002 and 2004. Now, as then, they are dozing in the campaign's homestretch, like Aesop's hare, lulled by rosy predictions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2006"","block_context":{"text":"September 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/september-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3581,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-york-times-surrenders\/","url_meta":{"origin":4346,"position":4},"title":"The New York Times Surrenders","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A monument to defeatism on the editorial page by Victor Davis Hanson City Journal Online On July 8, the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0ran an historic editorial entitled \u201cThe Road Home,\u201d demanding an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq. It is rare that an editorial gets almost everything wrong, but \u201cThe Road Home\u201d pulls\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2007"","block_context":{"text":"July 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/july-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10115,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-tar-pits-abroad\/","url_meta":{"origin":4346,"position":5},"title":"The Tar Pits Abroad","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Defining Ideas \u00a0 As missiles fall on Syria in retaliation for Bashar Assad\u2019s medieval use of chemical weapons\u2014and as voices call for the use of some American ground troops to expedite his removal\u2014we might reflect upon American military interventions in the post-Vietnam era. America\u2019s major interventions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bill Clinton"","block_context":{"text":"Bill Clinton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/bill-clinton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4347,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346\/revisions\/4347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}