Henry Kissinger has some advice for George W. Bush: the Iraq war is unwinnable, but don't let the soldiers come home. Better policy advice comes from the grave from Kissenger's old boss: Vietnamization Iraqization.

If winning the war in Iraq meant deposing Saddam Hussein, then victory was never in doubt. If winning the war in Iraq meant exporting the habits of the Swiss cantons into Iraq, then the war was doomed before it started. It is this utopian design, expressed most (in?)coherently in President Bush's second inaugural address, that sealed the fate of this war. Cultures are not for export.

Henry Kissinger, who knows something about losing a war, says that America can't win in Iraq, if one defines victory as bequeathing an orderly, democratic government to the alleged nation. Even though the former secretary of state has given up hope on this mission, he believes that America shouldn't withdraw. And if it does, America will have to go back. "A dramatic collapse of Iraq--whatever we think about how the situation was created--would have disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way or another, into the region." We should stay, and if we leave we should go back. Say what? Some people just want American troops in the Middle East no matter what.

Comparisons between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War are highly unconvincing. Far more symptomatic of a nation that just can't seem to forget that war than a real strategic similarity found in this war.

But if Iraq is not Vietnam, it might be Korea.

The Iraq War and the Korean War were both results of a nation lashing out in anger at a threat to it. In 1950, the Red Scare combined with the recent fall of China to the communists to create a nation with a great fear of a growing threat-and a psychological need to strike back. In 2002, a similar scenario played out as the American people, even after Afghanistan, retained the fear generated by 9/11, and still felt that enemies abound that needed to be punished.

Both wars came on the tail of a highly successful campaign for the US. In 1950, that was World War II. In 2003, it was the Afghanistan conflict, and Desert Storm, to which the Iraq War is a psychological sequel.

Iraq and Korea both began with a series of stunning US victories. In the Korean War, the US-led force not only drove the North out of the South's territory, but went across, nearly totally subsuming North Korea before China entered the war. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein's government was toppled incredibly quickly.

In both wars, by the end the US was fighting a different enemy than it started with. In Korea, the US started battling against North Korea, by 1953 it was facing China, with Soviet air support. In Iraq, we started battling a secular socialist dictator. We are now battling an Islamist insurgency and an ascended, religious, Iran.

In both Iraq and Korea, the American people were not fully prepared for a true conflict. In both instances, they were told, and expected, that the war would be a quick and stunning victory.

Both wars requires large investments of human and monetary capital, incurred a large opportunity cost, and ended with no clear-cut strategic gain for the United States to justify it.

So, if the Iraq War and the Korean war are similar, can we gain some strategic lessons by examining what the US did at the end of the Korean campaign?

The Korean war was the opening campaign in a much longer struggle, the Cold War. It now seems that our current end-game in Iraq is the opening of a much longer (hopefully not as long as the cold war) struggle with an ascendant, Shi'ite bloc in the Middle East, led by Iran. Especially if Iran goes nuclear, as seems increasingly likely, our face-off with them will stretch further than the immediate present.

Both before and after Korea, the US built up a strong base of allies, who also had reason to fear communist expansion, in the two main areas of the Cold War, Western Europe and East Asia.

The US should to the same, contacting Sunni Muslim powers like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, as well as other allies like Israel and Iraqi Kurdistan, and working with them to prepare for a alliance based around doing as much as possible to stem the growth of Iran's on Shi'ite faction.

The Korean War served as a wake-up for the American people, that the Cold War would not be won quickly or easily, and that it could not be won through force of arms alone.

Hopefully the Iraq War will teach us the same lesson about the Global War on Terror.

Not to shirk blame away from myself by saying "The American people". I was one of the most ardent supporters of the wrongheaded Iraqi adventure.

Lets really scew Iran.

Give them Henry Kissenger.

"Cultures are not for export."

Than what were the Neocons all about?

Skeptic, look at Ben-T's post. See, some Neocons can admit they were wrong about Iraq. Just not me. As I pointed out long ago, the fighting in Iraq is a battle, not a war. The longer we hold there, the greater our victory in the battle.
We are in a very difficult strategic position in the war against Islamic terrorists. To not have gone into Iraq would have left us in an even more difficult position. Establishing a democratic regime there was highly unlikely but would have gone a long way towards winning the War. Just trying to establish such a regime there puts us in a better strategic position. The longer the time we spend doing that, the better the position.

BenT: Iraq and Korea are not aptly compared. Korea was a victory, albeit an incomplete one. Iraq is a disaster. Korea was being gobbled up, like many countries before and after, by an expansivist international totalitarian idealogy that murdered scores of millions of people. And Iraq was sitting there ruled by a rather conventional and quite hemmed-in tyrant. Regarding the nonstop commie and Nazi comparisons from Neocons against their enemies -- Pa-lease! Enough already!

DocMcG:

The war in Iraq is not a war against Islamic fundamentalists. If anyone hoped it would be, they would have to be very disappointed that it has fostered greater anti-West hatred and fundamentalism in the Middle East.

You guys think Iraq was worth the venture. Still at some point you should say that the US should recognize that more victory ain't forthcoming, and leave. Korea, I think, accomplished something great for the people there, but we were right not to stick it out for a complete victory. Why does every victory in U.S. wars have to look like a homerun?

Skeptic, I cannot agree that the battle in Iraq has "fostered" greater anti-West hatred and fundamentalism in the Middle East" except to the extent that it has clarified such ideas. But clarification is exactly what was needed. It is hard to win against an enemy you can't distinguish. This is part of the strategically disadvantageous position we find ourselves in.

Guido, this is what the Neocons "were" all about: using the tools at hand to try to defend the foundations of our way of life, during a war started by an enemy that would bring down Western civilization, in daunting circumstances where much of the powerful and influential Multicultural Left would rather see traditional Western values lose (or at least be "brought down a peg or two," which in the end will amount to the same thing).

"Korea was a victory, albeit an incomplete one." -Skeptic

I don't agree about this. We went from nearly freeing the entire peninsula to settling on half. Like Iraq, there was no strategic gain that justified the investment.

"Korea was being gobbled up, like many countries before and after, by an expansivist international totalitarian idealogy that murdered scores of millions of people. And Iraq was sitting there ruled by a rather conventional and quite hemmed-in tyrant. Regarding the nonstop commie and Nazi comparisons from Neocons against their enemies -- Pa-lease! Enough already!" -Skeptic

This isn't the sort of comparison I was making.

Doc,

We are not fighting Islamic "terrorists" in Iraq. In fact our invasion overthrow a secular regime and in turn replaced it with a Shia/Iranian influenced regime. We are not fighting Islamic terrorists. We are fighting on the side of Islamic terrorists. The war is a convoluted mess and the only thing to do is leave -- the faster the better.

Doc;
I don't know any "powerful and influential Multicultural Left" so I'll have to set that aside. I did hear about Navy Capt. John Byron who wrote in 'Proceedings' magazine that "Thirty years of the All Volunteer Force have given the President a mercenary military unrepersentative of the nation it serves." This, I take it "are the tools at hand" you refer to. Capt. Byron comments about, "the ease with which it allows the President to make war. Give the chief executive his own army, and by golly he'll use it. Well, we did, and he has..." What is frightening is that the Neocons may have neutered us. So we are back to trying to find the enemy?

Eric Wilds,

If we are not fighting Islamic terrorists in Iraq it will certainly come as a surprise to Usama Bin Laden and the many others who have indicated in their statements that their highest prioirity is to get us out of Iraq.

Guido,

You certainly do know the Multicultural Left, at least you see some of them most everyday when you watch the broadcast networks evening news programs. The main reason we have an all volunteer force is, as Dan so eloquently explained in the post before the one we are commenting on, the modern military is too sophisticated for draftees. A secondary reason is that the pacifist, feminized, left would become even more unreasonable sqeamish about the use of force than they are, if there were a draft.

But our volunteer force was not a major part of the "tools at hand" of which I spoke. I was speaking more of Saddam Hussein's defying of the agreements which conluded hostilities after he invaded Kuwait. This defiance gave us the moral and legal justification for the use of force in that area which, in turn, allowed us to clarify, draw out, and engage the enemy.

Doc,

Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are marginal elements in Iraq. Iraq is collapsing into a feudal war and those we are protecting -- the Dawa Party and the SCIRI -- have ties to Iran's Ayatollahs. So, in fact, we are fighting for radical Islam in Iraq, unless you want to argue that Iran is moderate, democratic, and everything we hope Iraq turns out to be.