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11 September 2003: "Doubt"

It's rather silly that I rejoiced at Ted Hinchman's return to blogging, and then promptly forgot to read diachronic agency for over a week. Ahem.

Ted has a couple of good entries which should appeal to those of us—like me—who supported the invasion of Iraq, but are now struggling with the doubt inflicted particularly by the higher echelons of the DoD (i.e. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz). These start with "Bushilateralism" and continue with "Without a plan and without international cooperation" and "Flypaper phooey."

For my part, I will comment that I think that criticism of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz's "hyperconfidence" is warranted; it's not because criticisms of the war made prior to and during the war were correct—the weren't—but because the DoD has been unwilling to admit certain developments occurred which it had not foreseen. To quote the recurring line from Adam Garfinkle's article which Ted quotes, "these things happen." That's fine, but you have to acknowledge that they happen, and that they happen to you. The first step in overcoming a problem is acknowledging that it exists, and as long as the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz approach is to deny there is a problem, I will continue to have no faith whatsoever in the civilian leadership of the DoD. It's no accident that progress post-occupation has been made when the DoD has been overruled in favour of the State Dept. (e.g. Garner being replaced by Bremer). In this regard, Colin Powell's announcement that he will not serve as Secretary of State in a second Bush administration (should this come about) is, in my view, nothing short of a disaster; he's the only guy in the administration who has a clue.

I share Ted's opinion on the Bush administration requesting the UN's help; it grants "the UN" the opportunity to help do the Right Thing, after having been paralysed by a mere handful of member states who happen to have veto power. If the policy succeeds it will be a triumph for State; if it fails, we probably ought to blame Rumsfeld for needlessly antagonising the French and the Germans earlier this year. And we can legitimately criticise Bush for letting Rumsfeld open his yap at the time, instead of keeping him on a leash and doing defence stuff instead of complicating the Secretary of State's job with some macho bullshit display of cojones in which he turned out to be writing checks the US Army can't cash (not without the help of the French army).

For your enlightenment, by the way, check out Time's "10 Questions For Kofi Annan" (which my wife pointed out to me) and note the consummate diplomacy Uncle Kofi displays.

[Q:] Do you believe the U.S. was wrong to go to war without U.N. approval?
[A:] Obviously, it would have been better if there had been a bit of patience and the U.S. had worked with the other states.

Having just returned from visiting our troops in Iraq, I couldn't help but see parallels with Vietnam. But not in the way you'd think.

Usually Vietnam is invoked to warn of a quagmire, of an impending U.S. defeat against a guerrilla foe. El Salvador, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan were all going to be the "next" Vietnam before winding up U.S. victories. Now it's Iraq's turn to be seen, unfairly, as the looming quagmire.

But the real parallel with Vietnam is the disparity between battlefield realities and home-front perceptions.

In the popular view, Vietnam became "unwinnable" after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Actually, that campaign was a major American victory that all but destroyed the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force. By 1970 more than 90% of South Vietnam's population was under Saigon's control. But by then it didn't matter: Congress, the media and the voters had tired of the war and forced a sharp decrease in American aid. The result was that Saigon fell in 1975 — not to guerrillas but to North Vietnamese regulars driving T-54 tanks.

Now the media are portraying Iraq as a proto-Vietnam, a land where U.S. troops can't do anything right and where they can expect a prolonged and painful defeat. But as in Vietnam, U.S. troops in Iraq are slowly winning the war on the ground, even as they're losing the public relations battle back home.

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