Is Iraq Another Vietnam? - Hardcover

Robert K. Brigham

3.56

34 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586484133 ISBN 13: 9781586484132

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2006

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Since the first days of the Iraqi invasion, supporters of the war have cautioned the public not to view this conflict as another Vietnam. They rightfully point to many important distinctions. There is no unified resistance in Iraq. No political or religious leader has been able to galvanize opposition to U.S. intervention the way that Ho Chi Minh did in Vietnam. And it is not likely that 580,000 American troops will find their way to Iraq.

However, there are two similarities that may dwarf the thousands of differences. First, in Iraq, like Vietnam, the original rationale for going to war has been discredited and public support has dwindled. Second, in both cases the new justification became building stable societies. There are enormous pitfalls in America's nation building efforts in Iraq as there were in Vietnam. But it is the business we now find ourselves in, and there is no easy retreat from it morally. As American frustration increases, some policy makers are making the deadly mistake of approaching problems in Iraq as if we are facing them for the first time. It is crucial that we apply the lessons of Vietnam wisely and selectively.

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About the Author:

Robert K. Brigham is the Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar College. He is author of numerous books and essays on American foreign relations, including Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy written with Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight.

From The Washington Post:

The most impressive thing about Is Iraq Another Vietnam? (PublicAffairs, $24) is that Robert K. Brigham doesn't treat the title's question rhetorically. In this readable book, he emphasizes the military distinctions between the two conflicts: The United States does not have half a million troops in Iraq, many of them drafted; Iraq's insurgents lack the support of a sympathetic superpower and are unlikely to find a single galvanizing leader such as Ho Chi Minh; and while Vietnam began as an insurgency and escalated into a conventional war, Iraq started with a conventional invasion and deteriorated into a messy insurgency.

Still, notes Brigham, a professor of international relations at Vassar who previously coauthored a book with Vietnam-era defense secretary Robert S. McNamara, some important larger similarities have emerged: The stated rationales for going to war have been discredited in both cases; both missions morphed into attempts to build stable societies from chaos; and declining U.S. public support may presage an "Iraq Syndrome" that limits future U.S. interventions just as surely as the Vietnam Syndrome did. Today, he writes, "The United States seems to have come full circle. Once again it finds itself engaged in a war characterized by no clear boundaries, no clear exit strategy, no definition of victory, little allied support, no UN authority, growing public unrest, rising costs, and perhaps an inadequate number of troops for the job." U.S. policymakers decided to wage war in Vietnam and Iraq, Brigham concludes, "with the expectation that a distinctively American story would emerge.!

" It would be a distinctively American tragedy if those stories turned out to be the same.

-- Nathaniel Fick

Is Iraq Another Vietnam?

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