Last weekend’s shoot-down of a US Army Chinook helicopter is a parable for the on-going conflict in Iraq. Here was a flying behemoth, a symbol of American power and prestige, brought down by a relatively simple weapon in the hands of a single, determined individual. The action caused perhaps the greatest stir in Washington since the toppling of the old regime, and there are signs that it may have an effect out of all proportion to the number of fatalities. Several analysts have concluded that this tactical move will have a strategic effect; that it will move American public opinion sufficiently toward the belief that the guerrilla war is unwinnable, and that America should cut its losses and bug out.

On that point they have allies. Demonstrations in some US and Canadian cities have called for the swift departure of Coalition forces. The calls come from pragmatists who see the conflict bleeding America dry, from families of reservists suffering the financial strain of having their loved ones on such a long deployment, and from elements on the left who seek confirmation of their belief that the original decision to go to war was wrong.

Is there a pattern here? Have we not seen this before – a fight for the hearts and minds of a foreign population, a costly and seemingly intractable insurgency, plus a bizarre, informal  alliance between the insurgents and people on the home front?

The comparison to Vietnam leaps to mind. In the early stages of that war the US public initially trusted their president, only to find themselves wondering if the grand strategy of bringing liberal democracy to an alien world with a proud history and culture was worth the price in blood and treasure. At the highest political levels, the idealism of the purveyors of democracy clashed with the pessimism of those who thought America arrogant to try to sort out the lives of people of whom Americans knew so little. The pessimists were ultimately vindicated.   

But the comparison is not totally apt. In Vietnam, America did not capture the North’s capital, let alone depose its government. It was obliged to indulge and overlook the venality and corruption of its Southern “ally”. An insurgency bedevilled American troops wherever they were, instead of being confined to the central part of the country. Precision warfare was unknown; the US carpet-bombed the top half of the country, laying its cities to waste.

By way of contrast, Baghdad and the troublesome cities of the ‘Sunni Triangle’ are still standing – a testament to the resilience of their populations and the technology which made Saddam’s defeat a relatively bloodless affair. Morale within America’s all-volunteer force remains, for now, solid in Iraq – especially among those engaged in reconstruction at the local level. Casualty figures for the last five months approximate those of only a week of fighting in the jungles and rice paddies of Indochina.

Nevertheless, Washington would be foolish to overlook one of the key factors in its defeat in Southeast Asia three decades ago. In its bid to win support among the population for the notion of liberal democracy (motivations are important - Vietnam had no natural resources or markets of interest to the US) it mistook the communist insurgency in the South and the mass mobilization under Ho Chi Minh in the North as ‘confirmation’ that the war had been conceived in Moscow; part of a grand plan to export Soviet communism to Asia.

Wrong. For the North and certain elements in the South (not all of them communist) the seeds of war were not sewn in some far-away capital. They were grounded in good old-fashioned nationalism; a desire to be free of foreign domination. The fact that the movement happened to be wrapped up in a red banner was of less importance than the fact that the lure of independence and autonomy was markedly greater than that of liberal democracy.

It is unlikely that many Viet Cong guerrillas or North Vietnamese Army soldiers had ever heard of Marx or Engels. Dialectical materialism isn’t everyone’s bedtime reading. But appeals to a sense of nationhood are more easily heard and absorbed. The compulsion to plant an explosive on the doorstep of the US Embassy in Saigon is stems as much from a sense of national ‘self’ as the desire to set off a roadside bomb in Baghdad or Fallujah. To ascribe motivation to an outside party or parties reflects a failure to heed the most basic of political commandments: know thine enemy.

So is Iraq a modern incarnation of Vietnam? It is still too early to say. Whereas the US could leave Vietnam knowing that there were other, more important, theatres in which the struggle against communism would be played out, Iraq is different. Ho Chi Minh’s successors did not export their revolution. An Iraq in the hands of neo-Baathists would bode ill for the entire region.

To heed the doom-sayers and leave now would effectively halt a highly necessary conversion to proto-democracy. Without a self-sufficient judiciary and police force, without a political process that is open to all, the most ruthless elements in Iraqi society would be free to bully their way to power. These elements  - a hodge-podge of nationalists, fundamentalists, and opportunists – may initially coalesce into a very loose alliance to drive out the hated enemy and introduce a new order. But as is the case in most revolutions, the routing of the enemy would be followed by infighting among the factions. After much blood-letting and score-setting, a single faction would emerge and plant its boot firmly on the neck of all Iraqis.

It is therefore ironic that the fiercest opponents of creeping authoritarianism in America – those voicing concerns over the roll-back of constitutional protections - would counsel Washington to change tack and open the door to a return of elements who would strangle democracy in its crib. It is difficult to reconcile the commitment of liberals to the preservation and promotion of the basic freedoms enshrined in our laws with a persistent reluctance to extend them to others when the opportunity arises. It is also noteworthy that those who have roundly criticized the continuing American presence in Iraq have not offered a credible political alternative. (Even if the authority were ceded to the United Nations, the mission would still hinge on the presence of US troops and US money.)

One can readily acknowledge that war is a most undesirable way to spread our most sacred principles. But those who say that Iraqis should have been left to find their own way too easily forget the omnipotence of the Baath Party and the looming presence of Saddam’s ruthlessly efficient security apparatus. Together they represented a multi-headed leviathan which tolerated no dissent. The last time Saddam sensed a mass movement against his rule, he responded not with an offer of dialogue, but with poison gas. Would his style of government outlived him had been left alone? Given what we know about his two sons, probably. Absolute power is not easily surrendered. Thirty years on, the ordinary Vietnamese citizen still has no say in his/her own governance.

So while Iraq shares some common characteristics with the Vietnam debacle, there are differences which make the analogy problematic. In Southeast Asia, an intractable insurgency, combined with a growing perception that America’s security did not depend on what happened in an Asian backwater, eventually resulted in the humbling of a superpower. There is so much more on the line in Iraq - including the future political landscape of the entire Arab world. Thus the attacks against Coalition troops, civilian aid workers, and other Iraqis will only delay, not hasten, America’s departure.  

A hallmark of wisdom is the ability and willingness to look at one’s problems through the lens of past experience. The truly self-aware will invariably emerge from crisis and self-doubt with a renewed sense of purpose. If America’s experience does not tell it that it is in dangers of regressing into the throes of strategic drift, without a credible plan to stabilize Iraq and to introduce a new and just political order, then it has not learned from the darker periods of its history. Since its motivations are too easily misunderstood, it risks permanently alienating those it believes would benefit from its help. If its strategy is not clear to those who are underwriting this great project, they will soon demand a wholesale change in policy – and leadership. A stubborn, dithering superpower making Orwellian distinctions between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ combat is not what Iraqis (or the rest of us) need right now. What is needed is a renewed consensus that attacks on soldiers and civilian aid workers will not derail the plan to offer a better life to a country struggling to shed its authoritarian past. Such a consensus helped turn postwar Germany and Japan into responsible liberal democracies. Such a consensus would be the best memorial to those who have fallen in Iraq – those whose names will soon be etched on the walls and monuments of remembrance.

David Rudd is the President and Executive Director of the CISS.

Copyright CISS 2003

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