Today Buzzflash alerted me to this June 23 article by Richard Reeve
TIMETABLE: SIX MORE YEARS IN IRAQ
where he compares the likely outcome of the Iraq war to that of the Soviets in Afghanistan and the U.S in Vietnam. It is interesting to consider the parallels.
The words are almost always the same: "threat" ... "atrocities" ... "secret intelligence" ... "mission" ... "preventive" ... "fog" ... "brave" ... "terrorists" ... "Support our troops" ... "Stay the course" ... "waste"... "treason" ... "timetable" ... "withdraw" ... "tragedy."
It usually takes about nine years to say them all. Americans said them about Vietnam between 1964 and 1973. The Soviets said them about Afghanistan from 1979 to 1988. Judging by that recent history, we will be in Iraq for six or even more years. It will be a "tragedy" when we leave in 2012.
After recounting the Soviet and U.S. losses in Afghanistan and Vietnam, Reeve says:
The Vietnamese have been in the steamy heat of Vietnam for as long as history has been written. The same is true of the people in the hard mountains and valleys of Afghanistan and in the sands of Iraq. They are there forever. The occupiers go home one day; we come and we go.
He then discusses the much larger number of Afghan, Vietnamese, and Iraqi losses, and continues:
it seems to have taken us about 2 1/2 years to move into "timetable" territory. Both Democrats, the very loyal opposition, and Republicans, the lusty flag-wavers, have begun to use that "T" word.... So, we are beginning to hear calls for the end-game in Iraq....But recent history tells us it will be a long game.
The reason it will take so long? Reeve quotes another analyst:
"Republicans have to defend a war that was very badly planned and is costing much more in blood and treasure than the public was led to believe. Democrats struggle to define and agree on alternative policy that doesn't simply write off the sacrifices already made by our armed forces and accept defeat."
Reeve concludes:
If history is our guide, it will take six more years to declare peace with honor, one more time. As if most of us, Iraqis aside, did not already know that this war is over. We tried the impossible again, with the usual result -- and it will take time to craft a noble rationale for what we have done to ourselves.
Six more years? Many of us want the troops out NOW. But maybe Reeve is being optimistic. I've heard "at least ten" from some of our politicians, and "a generation" from others. And according to
Our Last Occupation (the Guardian, April 19, 2003), the British mandate in Iraq lasted from 1920 to 1932; then Britain ruled Iraq indirectly through "a semi-colonial monarchy" until 1958.
