While I share this author's concern that Iraq and Afghanistan might fail without our presence and help, this attempt to draw a comparison to the fall of South Vietnam is quite ridiculous:
Thirty-eight years ago last week, I was among the last CIA officers to be choppered off the U.S. Embassy roof in Saigon as the North Vietnamese took the country. Just two years before that chaotic rush for the exits, the Nixon administration had withdrawn the last American troops from the war zone and had declared indigenous forces strong enough, and the government reliable enough, to withstand whatever the enemy might throw into the fray after U.S. forces were gone.
That's the same story we told ourselves in Iraq when we pulled out of that country in 2011. And today, as American troops are being drawn down in Afghanistan, we're hearing variations on the same claims once again. Yet security remains so fragile in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible not to worry that we are deluding ourselves and that we failed to learn the most important lessons of Vietnam.
He goes on to discuss our failures to unify South Vietnam. You'd think this means that South Vietnam fell apart due to a resurgent Viet Cong. But that didn't happen.
No, we left South Vietnam strong enough to withstand the enemy if we provided logistics and air support. We did not provide that help as we promised Saigon, and as South Vietnam needed. Thank you, Congress.
We at least are still helping Iraq and plan to help Afghanistan--including troops unlike in Iraq--to allow them to withstand the enemies they have.
That help might not be enough, but I'd like to point out the small difference between the fall of South Vietnam and the possible failure of Iraq or Afghanistan to withstand forces within them and foreign interference--South Vietnam fell to a conventional North Vietnamese invasion spearheaded by tanks and supported by heavy artillery.
Which brings me to this gem:
There had been plenty of warning that South Vietnam was going to fall by the time it did on April 29, 1975. But denial and wishful thinking prevented us from adequately preparing for the safety of the many Vietnamese who had cast their lot with us. Their cries of panic over CIA radios on the last day still tear at my conscience.
Hey, what was your first warning clue, Einstein? The entire North Vietnamese corps marching through South Vietnam? The indication of falling provincial capitals. Yeah, that was subtle. Good on you for picking up on that. By then it was too late to do anything but watch--unless we were willing to unleash the bombers on Hanoi and the invasion spearheads. No? Hey, thanks once again, Congress.
So this lesson of Vietnam is really quite pointless. Who, pray tell, is poised to invade Iraq or Afghanistan with a conventional invasion? Because without that invasion, South Vietnam would still be around today. Maybe a couple decades or so behind South Korea's development path.
But about that invasion. What's that? Oh, right. Nobody. We have to keep them from resorting to violence to settle domestic disputes. Oh, Iran could pull off an invasion, but their logistics might falter before they advanced too far, especially if our air power hits their supply lines. And we could move in troops to counter-attack and repel Iran. And most Iraqis would resist. So I doubt Tehran would be so bold as to try while they lack nukes. So what we need to do is so much less in Iraq or Afghanistan than what we would have needed to do in Vietnam to preserve our win.
Which would make it even more damning of our foreign policy if we fail to defend our battlefield victories in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Let's learn the lesson of Vietnam. When we leave, the war continues and our friends deserve our help to defend what we sacrificed to gain. I'm not sure what South Vietnam that author was in.
