END GAME IRAQ: I read the news today about President Bush visiting Vietnam. After arriving, he replied to a reporter’s question about the lessons of the Vietnam War for today’s War in Iraq, and concluded that the lesson from Vietnam is to stick it out. What? Where the heck was he at the time? Buzzing the Texas pinelands in an outdated fighter jet, actually. There wasn’t much chance that a boy from the Bush family would be sent into the treacherous jungles of Vietnam. So I guess he never had to think too much about ‘the Nam’ and what it all meant. (And it shows.)

So now Mr. Bush is sacrificing young American lives once more, unintentionally teaching us about the limits of our power. Bottom line, there ain’t much we can do to stop a civil war. This past week, NPR radio interviewed a series of experts with different opinions as to what to do about Iraq. One guy made a very incisive comment: history shows that civil wars only stop after a whole lot of blood has been spilled. It certainly took a lot of blood to settle the American Civil War, more than any other conflict that American has been involved in.

As with the American Civil War, the conflict in Iraq involves one group that wants a unified nation (the Sunnis) and one group that ultimately does not (the Shiites). Without a unified Iraq, the Sunnis aren’t going to get any oil revenues, and are going to live a dirt poor existence. But the Shiites remember only too well the previous unified Iraqi government, and its tyrannical rule by a Sunni faction. For now, the Shiites dominate the national government structure that the USA helped to set up. But they don’t seem to be acting as though they believe in it – they just want to make sure that the Sunni Baathists don’t make a comeback.

From a practical perspective, I don’t think that the USA can completely withdraw from Iraq. We probably need to keep our special forces in Anbar and anywhere else where anti-western terrorist groups are active. But as to the dream of establishing a unified Iraq, I don’t think that even 500,000 American troops on the ground could do that. Once we get out of Iraq, there will probably be an even worse bloodbath than today; and the ultimate victor may be those trouble-making Iranians. But will there be any less net bloodletting if US troops remain in Iraq? The evidence on that is unclear, either way. Perhaps the best we can do is to take the consolation prize, i.e. a reasonably free and democratic Kurdistan. We can help set up a model nation state within the Islamic heartland after all, but only about 1/3 the size we had in mind. Nevertheless, the Kurdish north is where we can get something done.

Back to the Vietnam War days: we knew darn well that pulling out of Vietnam would mean a lot of bad stuff for our former friends over there. But it just wasn’t worth continuing a war against an enemy that we didn’t know how to beat (and still wouldn’t). Today, in Iraq, we have another situation that we don’t know how to beat. Time doesn’t seem to be on our side. There’s no good evidence of progress. Once we leave Iraq, there may be a horrendous escalation of violence. Or there may not be. Circumstances have proven that we did not understand the situation there when we got in, and we probably still don’t really understand it. It seems clear that there are better places and causes for us to use our military and our many other strengths.

But OK, I do write this with somewhat of a bias. Had Mr. Bush’s brand of thinking held sway in 1972 and 73, I might well have been drafted and could have been sent to Vietnam. I only missed it by about a year. So yes, I am biased against Mr. Bush’s rationale (but the latest election results would indicate that I’m not alone these days). Still, would Vietnam and America have been better places today if people like me continued to die in the jungles and mountains of Southeast Asia? And will Iraq and America be better in 10 years if our men and women over there continue to sacrifice themselves? When the answer is not too clear, then it’s probably not worth the price.