Winning the Peace, Quietly
NEW YORK — Having just returned from visiting our troops in Iraq, I couldn't help but see parallels with Vietnam. But not in the way you'd think.
Usually Vietnam is invoked to warn of a quagmire, of an impending U.S. defeat against a guerrilla foe. El Salvador, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan were all going to be the "next" Vietnam before winding up U.S. victories. Now it's Iraq's turn to be seen, unfairly, as the looming quagmire.
But the real parallel with Vietnam is the disparity between battlefield realities and home-front perceptions.
In the popular view, Vietnam became "unwinnable" after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Actually, that campaign was a major American victory that all but destroyed the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force. By 1970 more than 90% of South Vietnam's population was under Saigon's control. But by then it didn't matter: Congress, the media and the voters had tired of the war and forced a sharp decrease in American aid. The result was that Saigon fell in 1975 -- not to guerrillas but to North Vietnamese regulars driving T-54 tanks.
Now the media are portraying Iraq as a proto-Vietnam, a land where U.S. troops can't do anything right and where they can expect a prolonged and painful defeat. But as in Vietnam, U.S. troops in Iraq are slowly winning the war on the ground, even as they're losing the public relations battle back home.
That, at any rate, was the conclusion I reached after spending 10 days last month with the 1st Marine Division, based in south-central Iraq, and the 101st Airborne Division, based in northern Iraq. Speaking with everyone from privates to three-star generals, I was impressed by an overall sense of optimism and resolve in spite of well-publicized setbacks such as the horrific bombing of a mosque in Najaf. Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, put it succinctly: "We've got the bastards on the run."
The success that both divisions are having is based on a smart counterinsurgency strategy that combines carrots and sticks. Both are careful not to use indiscriminate firepower that would alienate civilians. Their raids are carefully focused so that they hit Baathist safe houses while minimizing inconvenience for and humiliation of the innocent.
