In perusing the paper Monday morning, amid international updates out of Mali, Iran and Israel, I happened upon the news that author and Asian historian Stanley Karnow, 87, had died. My eyes were immediately redirected to my bookcase. There it was–still nestled between Henry Kissinger’s Years of Upheaval and Robert S. McNamara’s In Retrospect: Karnow’s Vietnam: A History.
Published in 1983, it is still the seminal work on the subject. It should still be required reading for all those responsible for American foreign policy, as well as all those weighing in on it. And, yes, it’s still required reading for all those who don’t get a generational pass. Everyone needs to read the minutes of previous meetings. That’s because Edmund Burke is still right: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Too bad George W. Bush passed on Karnow. You know Colin Powell didn’t. John Kerry has read, as well as lived, Vietnam: A History. You sense that Barack Obama should re-read it. You hope John McCain finally gets around to it.
The parallels between Vietnam and the Middle East are not precise, of course, but they are illustrative. Vietnam was a Cold Warrior extension of anti-communist paranoia and containment. Iraq was a neo-con extension of WMD illusion and pre-emption. They both cost American lives, treasury, domestic concord and geopolitical credibility. They both were steeped in politics and tragedy. They both were wrong.