Asia Times: Dien Bien Phooey (Iraq /Viet Nam comparisons)

[unhappycamper]

Dien Bien Phooey
By Spengler
Jul 26, 2005

There is a difference between thrashing a spindly, bespectacled schoolmate who is an only child, and thrashing a spindly, bespectacled schoolmate whose sixteen-stone elder brother teaches martial arts. That summarizes the difference between Iraq and Vietnam. Had Washington unleashed its full fury upon Hanoi, the result well might have been nuclear confrontation. Then national security adviser Henry Kissinger feared that Indochina might become a flashpoint for Soviet-American confrontation. Part of his motive for abandoning America's South Vietnamese ally was to ensure that a proxy war did not escalate to hostilities between the two major powers. In fact, the record suggests that Kissinger subordinated tactical requirements on the Indochinese ground to the requirements of superpower summitry over arms control. I will return to that topic blow.

Matters today are quite different. America is the sole superpower, and in any event Iraq's Sunnis have no friends among the remaining minor powers. As long as American casualties remain below the threshold of popular irritation in the United States, Washington's nation-building program can hit the wall with an arbitrarily high degree of splatter, without perceptible consequences.

I am not privy to the details of American military deployments, but the shift in casualty figures towards Iraqi soldiers and policemen and away from coalition personnel strongly suggest that CENTCOM is keeping Americans out of harm's way. Sunni terrorists, both homegrown and imported, display fearful abandon in suicide attacks, and no doubt wish to kill as many Americans as they can. The fact that they are killing Iraqis instead indicates that American soldiers are holed up in their compounds out of reach.

<snip>

"Iraqification" bears no resemblance to "Vietnamization". Hanoi commanded a regular army of more than half a million men, with a record of conventional military victories going back to the siege of Dien Bien Phu in 1953-1954. It could count upon unlimited Russian materiel. After "Vietnamization", Northern regulars beat the army of the Republic of Vietnam in conventional war. The new Iraqi armed forces, haphazard as their organization might be, face no challenge from regulars, only the constant annoyance of suicide attacks. As noted, the Shi'ites have nowhere else to go. "Iraqification" may turn out to be a dog's breakfast, but no one will have to consume it on the Potomac.

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG26Ak01.html


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