Anthony Paul: An Iraq Watershed?
HISTORY never repeats itself exactly and the Iraq War differs in so many respects from wars in Indochina, but developments over the past few days invite this question: Is Washington's commitment in Baghdad encountering what I'll call its Westmoreland Moment?
The circumstances in Vietnam in 1968 were different in detail, of course. Nevertheless, perhaps they're close enough for us to wonder whether America's Iraq adventure may have reached a watershed similar to that associated with the hapless US commander, General William Westmoreland.
The reason for saying this is the news from Washington that two prominent senators have made what amounts to a bipartisan demand that President George W. Bush send more troops to reinforce the 138,000 US troops in Iraq.
The prospect of the President's concurring? 'Very unlikely', according to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar.
Made during separate television interviews, the call for more troops came from two respected lawmakers - Senator John McCain, a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Joseph Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat.
Both senators are expected to be candidates for their respective parties' nominations for the 2008 presidential race.
Both are clearly testing the water as win-the-war campaigners.
We have seen versions of this electoral manoeuvre in the US before - in 1952 and 1968. In 1952, the American voters' biggest concern was the Korean War.
A battlefield stalemate had upset voters. General Dwight Eisenhower won millions of votes with the promise 'I will go to Korea', implying he had a plan to end the war.
The remark was impromptu; he had no such plan. An angry President Harry Truman responded that if the retired general really did have a plan, he should tell the president at once and thus 'save a lot of lives'. But Gen Eisenhower's hint that he had a solution to the continuing bloodshed contributed to the landslide victory.
In 1968, another seemingly endless war was on the American mind. In February of that election year, the Vietcong's Tet Offensive had generated TV images of communist guerillas bringing unexpectedly heavy pressure on US and South Vietnamese forces.
Increasingly, Americans began to question White House and Pentagon claims that the war was being won.
In response to his Pentagon superiors' urgings that he speed up victory, General Westmoreland asked for reinforcements.
A New York Times headline in March broke the news: Westmoreland Requests 206,000 More Men, Stirring Debate In Administration.
Coming at a time when the White House was talking repeatedly about 'light at the end of the tunnel', a plan to toss even more American lives into Vietnam's maw shocked the nation. For both American voters and President Lyndon Johnson - he expected to be a candidate for re-election later that year - it was terminally dispiriting.
President Johnson sent aides in search of negotiations with the North Vietnamese. Later, in the hope that his absence might improve the chances of peace, he withdrew from the presidential race.
Meantime, the 1968 Republican candidate, former vice-president Richard Nixon, gambled on patriotic Americans' unwillingness to either withdraw support from their fighting GIs or accept talk of defeat.
As British historian Martin Gilbert noted: 'In public Mr Nixon was emphatic: 'I will not be the first president of the United States to lose a war'.'
Once in power, however, he launched that consummate negotiator, Dr Henry Kissinger, on the task not of winning the war but of withdrawing the US from the conflict.
President Nixon's Watergate-driven resignation muddied the historical waters somewhat, and when Indochina's wars ended in 1975, replacement president Gerald Ford was in the White House.
But the process Mr Nixon had instigated under the branding of 'peace with honour' effectively surrendered South Vietnam and Cambodia to communist forces.
I suspect we may be witnessing now the early stages of what has become a well-travelled Washington path to disengagement....
The circumstances in Vietnam in 1968 were different in detail, of course. Nevertheless, perhaps they're close enough for us to wonder whether America's Iraq adventure may have reached a watershed similar to that associated with the hapless US commander, General William Westmoreland.
The reason for saying this is the news from Washington that two prominent senators have made what amounts to a bipartisan demand that President George W. Bush send more troops to reinforce the 138,000 US troops in Iraq.
The prospect of the President's concurring? 'Very unlikely', according to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar.
Made during separate television interviews, the call for more troops came from two respected lawmakers - Senator John McCain, a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Joseph Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat.
Both senators are expected to be candidates for their respective parties' nominations for the 2008 presidential race.
Both are clearly testing the water as win-the-war campaigners.
We have seen versions of this electoral manoeuvre in the US before - in 1952 and 1968. In 1952, the American voters' biggest concern was the Korean War.
A battlefield stalemate had upset voters. General Dwight Eisenhower won millions of votes with the promise 'I will go to Korea', implying he had a plan to end the war.
The remark was impromptu; he had no such plan. An angry President Harry Truman responded that if the retired general really did have a plan, he should tell the president at once and thus 'save a lot of lives'. But Gen Eisenhower's hint that he had a solution to the continuing bloodshed contributed to the landslide victory.
In 1968, another seemingly endless war was on the American mind. In February of that election year, the Vietcong's Tet Offensive had generated TV images of communist guerillas bringing unexpectedly heavy pressure on US and South Vietnamese forces.
Increasingly, Americans began to question White House and Pentagon claims that the war was being won.
In response to his Pentagon superiors' urgings that he speed up victory, General Westmoreland asked for reinforcements.
A New York Times headline in March broke the news: Westmoreland Requests 206,000 More Men, Stirring Debate In Administration.
Coming at a time when the White House was talking repeatedly about 'light at the end of the tunnel', a plan to toss even more American lives into Vietnam's maw shocked the nation. For both American voters and President Lyndon Johnson - he expected to be a candidate for re-election later that year - it was terminally dispiriting.
President Johnson sent aides in search of negotiations with the North Vietnamese. Later, in the hope that his absence might improve the chances of peace, he withdrew from the presidential race.
Meantime, the 1968 Republican candidate, former vice-president Richard Nixon, gambled on patriotic Americans' unwillingness to either withdraw support from their fighting GIs or accept talk of defeat.
As British historian Martin Gilbert noted: 'In public Mr Nixon was emphatic: 'I will not be the first president of the United States to lose a war'.'
Once in power, however, he launched that consummate negotiator, Dr Henry Kissinger, on the task not of winning the war but of withdrawing the US from the conflict.
President Nixon's Watergate-driven resignation muddied the historical waters somewhat, and when Indochina's wars ended in 1975, replacement president Gerald Ford was in the White House.
But the process Mr Nixon had instigated under the branding of 'peace with honour' effectively surrendered South Vietnam and Cambodia to communist forces.
I suspect we may be witnessing now the early stages of what has become a well-travelled Washington path to disengagement....