I felt for Henry Kissinger the other day when he appeared before a Senate Armed Services Committee to offer foreign-policy insights. For the record, the former national security adviser to Richard Nixon counseled restraint in dealing with ISIS and Ukraine. Off-the-record, the 91-year-old was shouted down by an obnoxious, Codepink.org protester who accused him of war crimes in the Vietnam War.
Two points.
First, Kissinger wasn’t Lyndon Johnson, John McNamara, Gen. William Westmoreland or Henry Cabot Lodge, but he seriously impacted the “Peace With Honor” plans of Richard Nixon that prolonged U.S. involvement in Vietnam. It not only cost lives and casualties, but it was an extension of one of the worst foreign-policy decisions in this country’s history.
We replaced the French in Indo-China. We used the Cold War as a rationale for playing the domino card. Once Saigon falls, then it will be Manila, Seoul, Tokyo, etc. It didn’t matter that we were intruding on a Civil War that was none of our affair. It didn’t matter that Ho Chi Minh, albeit a Communist, had also been an ally of the Brits during World War II and helped rescue downed British pilots. We always ignore history at our own peril. Indeed, we may be re-living the principle again.
Had there been no Vietnam template–with all those unlearned lessons–there likely would have been no modern, manifest-destiny justification for the unnecessary invasion of Iraq.
No, this is not by any stretch all on Kissinger. Chances are, if he had his druthers, all foreign-policy matters would have a realpolitik solution.
The second point: Kissinger’s rationale for not endorsing the call to provide defensive weapons to Ukraine’s military as it battles Russian-back separatists. “I’m uneasy about beginning a process of military engagement,” advised Kissinger, “without knowing where it will lead us and what we’ll do to sustain it.”
Too bad the context wasn’t the White House of 1968–instead of Capitol Hill in 2015.