Iraq isn't Vietnam, Henry

[SWJED]

22 July LA Times commentary - Iraq isn't Vietnam, Henry (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-boot22jul22,0,2378830.story?coll=la-opinion-center) by Max Boot.


As congress debates the war in Iraq, it's becoming clear that many lawmakers want to bring the troops home while avoiding the likely consequences -- a ruinous civil war and a calamitous victory for Iran and Al Qaeda. This has led to much pining for some kind of negotiated solution -- what the Iraq Study Group called a "new diplomatic offensive" -- that might allow us a graceful exit.

Enter Henry Kissinger, the octogenarian "wise man" who is an advisor to President Bush. While rightly stressing that a "precipitate withdrawal" of U.S. forces would result in a "geopolitical calamity," he suggested in a recent syndicated column that "a sustainable political end to the conflict" can be achieved not through military action but through "wise and determined American diplomacy" that engages everyone from internal Iraqi players to Iran and Indonesia.

He didn't mention it in the column, but there is little doubt that Kissinger had in mind his own actions in negotiating the 1973 Paris peace accords that ended direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Indeed, some of his previous essays -- including one that ran in this paper in May -- have been explicit in citing his own experience as a model to learn from.

How seriously should we take him? Is it really possible that a super-skilled secretary of State -- someone like, umm, Henry Kissinger -- could deliver "peace with honor" today? It didn't work the last time around. Why should it work now?...

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Should a withdrawal be planned, then diplomacy will play an important role. It happens that Henry Kissinger is the best diplomat ever since Metternich.

About Vietnam, this war had to know an end without sacrificing the Kennan doctrine. At this regard, I see it as a success. Laos was, say, part of the “deal.”

Perhaps should we be better advised to try understanding what Henry Kissinger has in mind rather than listening to what he says.

It's my personal opinion, of course.

[Culpeper]

I like Henry. Really I do. Here is my impression of Henry Kissinger:




Soft but deep gravelly voice

If we are not very very careful hundreds of thousands of people may die.

[Abu Buckwheat]

Should a withdrawal be planned, then diplomacy will play an important role. It happens that Henry Kissinger is the best diplomat ever since Metternich.

About Vietnam, this war had to know an end without sacrificing the Kennan doctrine. At this regard, I see it as a success. Laos was, say, part of the “deal.”

Perhaps should we be better advised to try understanding what Henry Kissinger has in mind rather than listening to what he says.

It's my personal opinion, of course.


It has been widely reported that Cheney and Bush meets with Kissinger regularly and that he advised Cheney weekly on Iraq during the run up to invasion. His history of "success" is littered with over a million dead. He is the arguably the worst dplomat in US history considering all we got is Nixon going to China but Vietnam had to be exchanged for it.

His belief in his own image as master statesman may explain allot about the attitudes towards the Middle East in the present adminsitration.

[mike sullivan]

RE: <<It has been widely reported that Cheney and Bush meets with Kissinger regularly . . .He is the arguably the worst dplomat in US history."

Now I understand.

[Dominique R. Poirier]

It has been widely reported that Cheney and Bush meets with Kissinger regularly and that he advised Cheney weekly on Iraq during the run up to invasion. His history of "success" is littered with over a million dead. He is the arguably the worst dplomat in US history considering all we got is Nixon going to China but Vietnam had to be exchanged for it.

His belief in his own image as master statesman may explain allot about the attitudes towards the Middle East in the present adminsitration.

Well, independently of the quality or past success and failures of a given diplomat, diplomacy is not an infallible means to arrive at the best solution. The universally accepted Clausewitzian proposition that “war is the continuation of politics by other means” implicitly obliges us to recognize that diplomacy may fail at some point. When it does, then costs ensue, usually.

Diplomacy is sometimes defined as the art of the possible; and to think of it in this light and to recognize the different factors that restrict a statesman’s freedom to choose among possible courses of action helps to illuminate some of the difficulties and the limitations of statecraft.

But is should never be forgotten that there are historical situations (virtually in time of national defeat and disaster) in which statesmen and their advisers are not given the privilege of choice at all, but are forced to accept things that they do not wish to accept, or to do things that they do not whish to do, because the penalty for reusing to do so is just unacceptable.

Let the man explain his point:


“Only absolute security—the neutralization of the opponent—is considered a sufficient guarantee, and thus the desire of one power for absolute security means absolute insecurity for all the others.

Diplomacy, the art of restraining the exercise of power, cannot function in such an environment. It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is “good faith” and “willingness to come to an agreement.” For in a revolutionary international order, each power will seem to its opponent to lack precisely these qualities. Diplomats can still meet but they cannot persuade, for they have ceased to speak the same language. In the absence of an agreement on what constitutes a reasonable demand, diplomatic conferences are occupied with sterile repetitions of basic positions and accusations of bas faith, or allegations of “unreasonableness” and “subversion.” They become elaborate stage plays which attempt to attach as yet uncommitted powers to one of the opposing systems.”

Henry Kissinger, in A World Restored. Metternick, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace; 1812-1822. 1973.