John Robb of Global Guerillas is getting all sorts of deserved props for his latest:
The real question we should be asking ourselves is whether or not our maximalist goals in Iraq could ever have been achieved given the capabilities of the opposition and the limited levels of commitment
we were able to bring to to bear on the problem. I suspect the answer
is no. The goals didn’t match our capabilities and there weren’t any
simple tweaks to our strategy that would have changed the outcome. This
was a difficult way to learn this lesson, but given our tendency
towards rationalization, I doubt that it will be learned at all.
This is indeed wisdom, and it’s good of John to put it out there. But here’s how I started my week’s A-Clue.Com back in late April:
The purpose of a military is to gain and hold territory.
That purpose is obsolete.
No military power, no matter how great its weapons or how dedicated
its people, can control any land without at least the acquiescence of
those who live there.
This acquiescence may be grudging. It may be a devil’s bargain,
freedom exchanged for comfort or opportunity. But that acquiescence
must be won. Without it nothing else is possible.
Pretty much the same thing. Only I posit the lesson is learnable. (The picture at the left, from the Gerald Ford photo collection at the University of Texas, shows Ford with Richard Nixon on Ford’s 1965 appointment as Minority Leader.)
One of the most interesting aspects of the building U.S. political campaign is whether Democrats will face this fact of war plainly, and state this conclusion boldly. This is what many Netroots activists want. More likely the Democrats will try to weasel out of it, which is what Robb is proposing.
Because Republicans are going to the "we wuz robbed" mine again, a line of argument which has worked since the Nixon Thesis broke through (with help from the Wallace forces) in 1968. They are acting just as Democrats did when they floated threats to the New Deal during the 1966 campaign. The Republican response at that time, the Ford repsonse which resonated with voters, was that we all agree on the objectives of the New Deal, we merely disagree on tactics.
It was a John Robb answer.
This was not what the building Goldwater wing of the party believed,
but this became the strategy, and it succeeded. "We’re all New Dealers
now, we just want to adjust our strategy and make it work." Never mind
that the wing of the GOP which really believed this was on its way out,
to be replaced by "true believers" from the Goldwater movement
dedicated to destroying everything the New Deal (and everything which
came after) stood for. This was where the people were, where the party felt it
could go, and that was the 1966 election.
The direct challenge to the New Deal would come later, after the true believers achieved power through Ronald Reagan, who made his first run for public office in 1966.
Now we’re 40 years on from there. A full generation has gone by since
the Nixon-Wallace majority was put in place, with its assumption that
"enemies" were behind our coming defeat in Vietnam. That’s the 2006
Republican platform — just substitute the word Iraq for Vietnam. The
only twist is that Bush deliberately conflates the Global War On Terror
with Iraq, just as 40 years ago Robert McNamara called Vietnam "a Cold
War activity."
What Democrats are lining up to do, now that they feel brave (due to
the President’s declining poll numbers) is to say, like Republicans did
40 years ago, that "we all agree on the objectives of the War on Terror, we merely disagree on tactics."
It’s a cop-out, but it’s a strategy that can win. And that’s how you can play The 1966 Game to win in 2006.
