From: Monte Davis 

John Cuccia  wrote:

>
>The US commander in Iraq Gen. John Abizaid doubts...

I read his testimony several times, and it's hard to see it as much more
insightful than this from today's NYTimes:

" 'It's a disaster if the American forces stay in Iraq, but it's a
disaster if they go,' said an elderly man named Ayad..."

I recently got around to Walter Isaacson's 1992 biography of Kissinger.
Fort anyone who didn't realize it at the time, he makes it very clear that
the terms of the cease-fire under which our last troops left in spring 1973
were very, very close in substance to what the North had put on the table
when the peace talks began in secret in mid-1969. What happened in the 40+
months between was *not* about ensuring the South's survival. By their own
testimony at the time, both Nixon and Kissinger doubted that in 1969 and
*really* doubted it by 1972. It was about US "credibility" in the
larger Cold War context
-- and by 1972, after N&K drinking toasts in Beijing and Moscow, the
perceived stakes in that game had changed. Of course, once they got around
to their memoirs, both RN and HK sang a different song.

For all the salient differences between Vietnam and Iraq, that's where we
are now: seeking not a good outcome, but one that doesn't embarrass us more
than we can stand. I can't take the Kabuki very seriously: whether we leave
Baghdad tomorrow or in 2013, we will be told for a generation afterward
that things were getting better all the time, that it was winnable if only
we hadn't cut and run, that public opinion was misled by the Democrats and
the media, yada yada yada. You may be looking in vain for the Abizaid or
Bush/Cheney or Weekly Standard plan for victory now -- but trust me, once
the Iraq adventure is over, you'll be assured that it was there all along,
if only you'd been patient enough.

Monte Davis
http://montedavis.livejournal.com

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