A Vietnam flashback

Obama's Iraq plan is reminiscent of a previous catastrophe; If Obama and Biden have their way, the US will pull up the flag and go home in defeat, squandering its huge gains.

By ABRAHAM KATSMAN
You wouldn't know it from following the major news outlets. And you certainly wouldn't know it from listening to the campaign speeches of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. But the United States military and coalition forces have been on a roll in Iraq. Just last week, yet another province was secure enough to be turned over to the surprisingly effective new Iraqi security forces. That news seemed to get lost amid the superbly thorough news coverage of Sarah Palin's new wardrobe. So, for those of you who read The New York Times, here is a brief summary of where the US is in Iraq: As a direct result of the 2007 "surge"- so vocally advocated by John McCain, and so vocally opposed by Obama, Biden and the Democrat leadership - huge sections of Iraq are now stable, peaceful and free. According to Pentagon sources, al-Qaida is on the run and the war has effectively come to an end in 14 of 18 provinces. Oil is flowing, and society is rebuilding. These successes occurred at roughly the same rate that Iraq stories disappeared from the front pages of the Times. In September, US combat deaths for all of Iraq were six - about the same as an average weekend in Chicago. But, as coalition commander Gen. David Petraeus, surge architect and expert on counter-insurgency, constantly warns, these gains are fragile and not irreversible. He does not use the word "victory" to describe where the US stands: "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade." In other words, don't leave too quickly, or it can all fall apart. But if Obama and Biden have their way, the US will pull up the flag and go home in defeat, squandering its huge gains. Even now, they only grudgingly, belatedly credit the surge for any success - as recently as July, Obama said he still wouldn't support it, even in hindsight. They are still wedded to the same withdrawal schedule Obama advocated before the surge, when he stated: Let me be clear: there is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year - now. For Obama, a man with zero military background or foreign policy experience, to stubbornly maintain the same defeatist policy in the face of resounding military success and the assessment of Gen. Petraeus requires a noxious blend of arrogance and hubris. Exercising terrible judgment and too proud to acknowledge compelling contrary evidence does not bode well for the kind of leadership the US might expect from Obama. Obama and Biden still regularly denigrate the US achievement in Iraq, ignoring the implications of their campaign applause lines calling for an end - not a win - to the war. And it's not just Obama and Biden, but the entire Democrat congressional leadership that refers the war as "lost," and advocates leaving ASAP. Whether this policy is clouded by political calculation, pacifist mindset or animus towards President George W. Bush, it is oblivious to the reality of the situation on the ground. THE BENEFIT for the entire region of maintaining a stable, free, democratic, American-allied Iraq is immeasurable. But if the US pulls the plug too soon, as Obama and Biden continue to advocate, Iraq will be doomed to bloody chaos. Al-Qaida and the Islamists throughout the region, especially neighboring, genocidal Iran, will win a huge victory (not to mention huge oil reserves). American credibility, both as a military force and as an ally in time of need, will evaporate. Unfortunately, the US has been in an eerily similar situation before: the aftermath of Vietnam - and the results weren't pretty. Like Saigon, our allies in Baghdad cannot yet survive without us. Some quick history: Finally concluding that they could not defeat the American-backed Republic of South Vietnam, in January 1973 communist North Vietnam signed the Paris Agreement, which called for cessation of attacks and recognition of Saigon's fragile democratic government. America withdrew its troops, but continued air support and arms to the anti-communist, increasingly stable South Vietnamese, as well as to its neighboring anti-communist Republic of Cambodia. But a hated president Richard Nixon resigned in scandal, and his obsessive, personally vindictive critics then elected to Congress in 1974 could not bear to support his arguably significant foreign policy success in a war they had vehemently opposed. Within months, congressional Democrats proceeded to kick the legs out from under the South Vietnamese, withdrawing all American personnel, and cutting off all aid and arms - leaving all of Indochina to the tender mercies of the communist forces. Now with a free hand, the North invaded, communist-style. They killed more than one million South Vietnamese. Two million fled. Anyone who had been associated with the US or the Saigon government was targeted. Millions were forced into "re-eduction" camps. Hundreds of thousands of "boat people" climbed aboard anything that would float and escaped to sea with no idea where they'd end up, usually in the hands of pirates and the mouths of sharks. Communist forces were now also undeterred from conquering American-allied Cambodia. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge-Marxists with a curiously al-Qaida-esque zealotry for social reconstruction, expelled half the population from their homes, engaged in systematic torture, starvation and forced labor, destroyed every book they found, forbade married people from speaking for extended periods of time and forbade sexual relations entirely, and conducted public mass executions, often killing entire families at once. Death toll: nearly two million - almost 1/3 of the entire country - butchered in the "killing fields." (Reliably, The New York Times reflected the voice of the Democrats, arguing that the Khmer Rouge would be moderate, as would other local communist forces, once the Americans would leave.) Who were those Democrats responsible for such a policy? Could such people be trusted to handle a post-Bush Iraq? Are people with that blood on their consciences still in power? Well, here's a hint: One went on to vote against the first Gulf War, got caught in a plagiarizing scandal, opposed the Alaska pipeline and opposed the aforementioned successful "surge." Yep, the man now providing foreign policy experience, judgment and "gravitas" to the Obama candidacy: a young anti-war senator named Joe Biden. Early in the war, critics constantly compared Iraq to Vietnam. With Obama and Biden in charge, that may turn out to be an apt comparison. The writer is counsel to Republicans Abroad Israel. The above first appeared in JPost.com's Blog Central.