GOOD ENOUGH WARS:

A Better Strategy For Iraq (David Ignatius, November 4, 2005, Washington Post)

It's a telling fact that the hot book among Iraq strategists this season is "A Better War," an upbeat account of American counterinsurgency policy in the last years of the Vietnam conflict. I noticed that the head of Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, was reading it when I traveled with him in September. The influential State Department counselor Philip Zelikow read the book earlier this year. And I'm told it can be found on the bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad. [...]

"A Better War" was published in 1999. The author, Lewis Sorley, a former military and intelligence officer, drew on an extensive collection of documents and tape recordings from legendary Army warrior Gen. Creighton Abrams, who commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972. The book's contrarian argument is that after Abrams replaced Gen. William Westmoreland -- and scuttled his "search and destroy" tactics in favor of a pacification strategy of "clear and hold" -- the Vietnam War began to go right.

Indeed, Sorley argues that by early 1972 the United States had effectively won the war and could turn the fighting over to its South Vietnamese allies.

By Sorley's account, it was politics back in America that turned victory into defeat, by blocking U.S. support for the Saigon government after North Vietnamese troops invaded the South en masse in 1974 and '75.

We can't recommend the book highly enough and there's a very good essay by Mr. Sorley on-line here, Courage and Blood: South Vietnam's Repulse of the 1972 Easter Invasion (LEWIS SORLEY, Parameters). The lessons he teaches about Vietnam and the efficacy of drawing down U.S. troops in favor of turning over responsibility to the natives are directly applicaple to Iraq, as is the warning that the American Left is perfectly capable of and more than willing to squander victory, as for instance, The road out of Iraq (Larry Beinhart, November 4, 2005, Baltimore Sun)

The first step in getting out of Iraq is to blame George W. Bush.

This is a serious suggestion. It is neither facetious nor partisan. [...]

The solution is to rebrand the war. It's not America's war, it's not a war on terror, it has to be labeled as George Bush's war. It needs to be established in the popular mind that it's Mr. Bush's personal war, that he led us into for his own political and psychological reasons - it was not about security, not about weapons of mass destruction, not even about terrorists. That he lied to the American people and effectively conned us into following him, and that once in the war, he planned it foolishly and led it ineffectively.

Most important, George Bush has already lost the war.

If it is Mr. Bush's war, not America's, it is patriotic to end it.

If he conned us into it, then there is no dishonor in repudiating it. Indeed, it is forthright, honest and courageous to stand up and say there was a terrible mistake made, we will do all we can to correct it.

If he has already lost it, then leaving is not cutting and running, it is cleaning up someone else's mess. It's better than that. Indeed, it is the only courageous, honorable and decent choice.

When Ronald Reagan was buried the MSM, to our wonderment, informed us that it was on his watch that our unified national campaign against the USSR pretty much was won. Similarly, thirty years from now, folks like Mr. Beinhart will recall with pride how they helped liberalize the Middle East during the Bush years.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 4, 2005 8:54 AM