Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Chicago Tribune
April 13, 2008 By Michael Tackett
There was no shortage of strategic advice for President Bush about the war in Iraq last week, including the reprise of a phrase that, most likely, never was actually uttered: "Declare victory and go home."
It is a phrase often attributed to late Sen. George Aiken, a Vermont Republican who served in the Senate for 34 years during the era when the northeastern Republicans ruled the GOP. It was also an era of comity, reflected by Aiken's daily breakfast with Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader in the Senate. When is the last time there was that kind of relationship in Washington?
In their time, Vietnam created far more anguish in the capital than Iraq has today, though when Aiken offered up his strategic option to Lyndon Johnson—who rejected it out of hand—the Vietnam War had been going on for about as long as this war.
It seems that Bush shares Johnson's contempt for what has become known in political myth as the "Aiken formula" for bringing a war to an end.
Last week, the president, outwardly confident as ever that the war in Iraq is as right today as it was when he launched it more than five years ago, ensured that bringing the war to an end will not be up to him but to his successor.
The president, seemingly skipping a few rungs of normally rigid Pentagon hierarchy, said he will give Gen. David Petraeus "all the time he needs" to make a decision on bringing more troops home.
So Bush has ensured that the force levels will remain roughly the same through the November election. If you believe that means the American military will be able to control the violence, that might mean the war will be less of an issue. If you believe Moqtada Sadr can ignite violence with the flip of a switch, then the war could be demonstrably worse as voters decide on Bush's replacement.
In Bush's world, there will be no declaring victory and going home.
Though Aiken never used that precise language, his sentiments were clear when he took to the Senate floor on Oct. 19, 1966. And the similarities between the situation he was describing in Vietnam and the situation in Iraq are striking, and in some ways hauntingly so.
He noted that in February 1965, when the U.S. combat troops in South Vietnam were fewer than 20,000, a military defeat for Americans was actually possible. A dramatic increase in forces ensured that any future defeat would not be based on combat. "At the present time it is not possible to sustain a clear and present danger of military defeat facing U.S. armed forces," he said.
"The enemy has apparently dismissed any idea of engaging in formal combat with superior U.S. forces, and has resorted to a war of harassment and surprise guerrilla tactics. ... Casualties to American forces in Vietnam are inevitable. The more American troops in active combat, the more casualties from such harassment there will be."
Sound familiar?
Because U.S. troops weren't seriously threatened with military defeat, Aiken warned that there might be an intervention from China (think Iran today) and a "prolonged erosion of the credibility of U.S. power through harassment in a political context."
And he argued that more troops actually reduced the chance for a political solution.
"The greater the U.S. military commitment in South Vietnam, however, the less possibility that any South Vietnamese government will be capable of asserting its own authority on its home ground or abroad," he said.
"The size of the U.S. commitment already clearly is suffocating any serious possibility of self-determination in South Vietnam, for the simple reason that the whole defense of that country is now totally dependent on the U.S. armed presence."
Meanwhile, in Iraq …
Then Aiken crafted the formulation of a strategy for victory that has been distilled to the pithy shorthand that he didn't actually say.
"The United States could well declare unilaterally that this stage of the Vietnam War is over—that we have 'won' in the sense that our armed forces are in control of most of the field and no potential enemy is in a position to establish its authority over South Vietnam.
"... The unilateral declaration of military victory would herald the resumption of political warfare as the dominant theme in Vietnam."
No other country, Aiken said, was likely to dispute in any significant way that the U.S. had "won" the military conflict.
The reprise of the line that Aiken never uttered in the first place has taken on new currency with talk of Bush adopting the "Aiken formula."
While Aiken didn't literally say "declare victory and go home" or "declare victory and move on," he did offer the president of his time a way out of a war that would only grow more tragic, costly and unwinnable with time.
University of Vermont professor Mark Stoler studied Aiken's speech in depth in the context of the senator's overall views on Vietnam, concluding that Aiken wasn't quite so declarative as the modern-day mythology of his remarks would suggest.
For one, Aiken voted to continue to fund the war, and he voted for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that ensured the war's escalation.
Instead, Aiken was being more pragmatic and nuanced in his proposed solution for the war even though Johnson so clearly rejected his advice.
He did want a declaration of victory. He didn't want a quick and complete withdrawal. He wanted to redeploy troops in a strategic way that would force the North and South to reach a political solution. So even if he didn't quite say it the way we thought, even if his stated objective wasn't as stark and clear as the myth, it doesn't mean he was wrong.
Michael Tackett is the Tribune's Washington Bureau chief.
April 13, 2008 By Michael Tackett
There was no shortage of strategic advice for President Bush about the war in Iraq last week, including the reprise of a phrase that, most likely, never was actually uttered: "Declare victory and go home."
It is a phrase often attributed to late Sen. George Aiken, a Vermont Republican who served in the Senate for 34 years during the era when the northeastern Republicans ruled the GOP. It was also an era of comity, reflected by Aiken's daily breakfast with Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader in the Senate. When is the last time there was that kind of relationship in Washington?
In their time, Vietnam created far more anguish in the capital than Iraq has today, though when Aiken offered up his strategic option to Lyndon Johnson—who rejected it out of hand—the Vietnam War had been going on for about as long as this war.
It seems that Bush shares Johnson's contempt for what has become known in political myth as the "Aiken formula" for bringing a war to an end.
Last week, the president, outwardly confident as ever that the war in Iraq is as right today as it was when he launched it more than five years ago, ensured that bringing the war to an end will not be up to him but to his successor.
The president, seemingly skipping a few rungs of normally rigid Pentagon hierarchy, said he will give Gen. David Petraeus "all the time he needs" to make a decision on bringing more troops home.
So Bush has ensured that the force levels will remain roughly the same through the November election. If you believe that means the American military will be able to control the violence, that might mean the war will be less of an issue. If you believe Moqtada Sadr can ignite violence with the flip of a switch, then the war could be demonstrably worse as voters decide on Bush's replacement.
In Bush's world, there will be no declaring victory and going home.
Though Aiken never used that precise language, his sentiments were clear when he took to the Senate floor on Oct. 19, 1966. And the similarities between the situation he was describing in Vietnam and the situation in Iraq are striking, and in some ways hauntingly so.
He noted that in February 1965, when the U.S. combat troops in South Vietnam were fewer than 20,000, a military defeat for Americans was actually possible. A dramatic increase in forces ensured that any future defeat would not be based on combat. "At the present time it is not possible to sustain a clear and present danger of military defeat facing U.S. armed forces," he said.
"The enemy has apparently dismissed any idea of engaging in formal combat with superior U.S. forces, and has resorted to a war of harassment and surprise guerrilla tactics. ... Casualties to American forces in Vietnam are inevitable. The more American troops in active combat, the more casualties from such harassment there will be."
Sound familiar?
Because U.S. troops weren't seriously threatened with military defeat, Aiken warned that there might be an intervention from China (think Iran today) and a "prolonged erosion of the credibility of U.S. power through harassment in a political context."
And he argued that more troops actually reduced the chance for a political solution.
"The greater the U.S. military commitment in South Vietnam, however, the less possibility that any South Vietnamese government will be capable of asserting its own authority on its home ground or abroad," he said.
"The size of the U.S. commitment already clearly is suffocating any serious possibility of self-determination in South Vietnam, for the simple reason that the whole defense of that country is now totally dependent on the U.S. armed presence."
Meanwhile, in Iraq …
Then Aiken crafted the formulation of a strategy for victory that has been distilled to the pithy shorthand that he didn't actually say.
"The United States could well declare unilaterally that this stage of the Vietnam War is over—that we have 'won' in the sense that our armed forces are in control of most of the field and no potential enemy is in a position to establish its authority over South Vietnam.
"... The unilateral declaration of military victory would herald the resumption of political warfare as the dominant theme in Vietnam."
No other country, Aiken said, was likely to dispute in any significant way that the U.S. had "won" the military conflict.
The reprise of the line that Aiken never uttered in the first place has taken on new currency with talk of Bush adopting the "Aiken formula."
While Aiken didn't literally say "declare victory and go home" or "declare victory and move on," he did offer the president of his time a way out of a war that would only grow more tragic, costly and unwinnable with time.
University of Vermont professor Mark Stoler studied Aiken's speech in depth in the context of the senator's overall views on Vietnam, concluding that Aiken wasn't quite so declarative as the modern-day mythology of his remarks would suggest.
For one, Aiken voted to continue to fund the war, and he voted for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that ensured the war's escalation.
Instead, Aiken was being more pragmatic and nuanced in his proposed solution for the war even though Johnson so clearly rejected his advice.
He did want a declaration of victory. He didn't want a quick and complete withdrawal. He wanted to redeploy troops in a strategic way that would force the North and South to reach a political solution. So even if he didn't quite say it the way we thought, even if his stated objective wasn't as stark and clear as the myth, it doesn't mean he was wrong.
Michael Tackett is the Tribune's Washington Bureau chief.