I was watchingMeet the Press with Tim Russert this morning, and the claim was made by Washington post writer Thomas Ricks, who has authored the book "Fiasco" about Iraq, that invading Iraq was probably going to be viewed as (to date) the worst decision in the history of American Foreign policy.
What say you history dopers. Is this a plausible claim?
Each generation gets it’s own claimant to that thophy.
The names are engraved and it’s passed around like the Stanley Cup.
No surprise to many here, but I feel it was. I think the US has discredited itself precisely at a time when China is emerging as a global power. I also think America has destabilized the Middle East, driven a wedge between ourselves and our European allies, made it impossible for democratic voices to exist in the ME without appearing to be lackies of the United States, empowered radical elements within Iran (which prior to the invasion were losing influence), and strengthened Iran as a regional power.
When I’m home on R&R people ask me if Iraq is another Vietnam. I tell them that when this is over we will wish it was just another Vietnam. I think Bush has sown has hastened America’s global standing and risked huge financial upheaval if in the world’s oil markets.
Its too early too tell IMHO. I find it hard to believe that Iraq (to date) is a worse policy blunder than Vietnam from any perspective you care to name. Of course, if we are still in Iraq 2 administrations from now, if the US death toll goes completely nuts and is an order of magnitude greater, if the money continue to hemorage at a quicker rate, and if Iraq goes completely tits up, taking most of the region with it…well, then you’d have a pretty good case that Iraq was the worst policy blunder in US history. We’d need to start comparing ourselves to the worst blunders our Euro buddies have made in that case…and who knows, we might top even them in this fuck up. 
Even now I would have to rate it in the top 10 of fuckups by the US…and maybe even in the top 5.
-XT
I think by most objective measures that getting involved in Vietnam was worse than invading Iraq. But that’s judging things as the exist now– it might well be that the decision to invade Iraq will turn out to be (at some future time) worse than Vietnam. Whether it’ll be the worst decision in the history of the US is hard to say. What if the US (along with Britain and the other allies) had acted sooner to contain Hitler-- could we have largely avoided the catastrophy of WWII? You have to consider things we didn’t do along with things we did do if you’re going to go down that road.
Personally I find it far-fetched to classify the invasion of Iraq as worse than the invasion of Vietnam. In discussing the relative awfulness of ideas, we need to divide stupidity, like all of Gaul, into three parts: stupidity of idea, stupidity of execution, and stupidity of consequences.
The idea of killing a huge number of Vietnamese in order to save the Vietnamese is surely equal in stupidity to the idea of killing a huge number of Iraqis in order to save the Iraqis.
By any measure, the execution of the Vietnam War was worse than the Iraq war has been. We might measure by Americans deaths, Americans injuries, civilian deaths, total deaths, money wasted, damage to America’s prestige abroad, or damage to American cohesion at home. Regardless of what we choose, Vietnam was the worse decision.
Of course, the politicians who wrecked Vietnam had an advantage that allowed for greater stupidity. With the draft, they had an unlimited supply of American soldiers, and thus no limit on how their behavior. They could expand the war as much as they wished and maintain it indefinitely. In Iraq, by contrast, the fixed number of available soldiers prevents Bush from expanding the war, and will eventually force our politicians to bring the troops home. In that regard it may not be a fair comparison, since the Vietnam-era presidents had an unfair advantage in the stupidity category.
One final thought.
The whole question of the worst decision “in the history of U.S. foreign policy” is skewed towards more recent decisions. The U.S. has been much more active in world affairs during the last century than it was in it’s first 130 years, and much more active since WWII than in the first half of the 20th century. Hence there were many more foreign policy decisions in the last three generations than in earlier times, and far more chances for those decisions to have huge consequences. If Chester Alan Arthur or James K. Polk had completely bungled their foreign policy initiatives, it would hardly be worth remembering today. They may have done so, for all I know.
IMO from the point of view of recruitment to Islamic extremism and terrorism. Vietnam didn’t cause hundreds of formerly peacible Communists to don explosive vests and blow the shit out of people in their own countries. Thousands of Communists from all over the world didn’t flood into Vietnam to fight the Americans, and get trained in Viet Cong terror camps. The perception of the “street”, prior to the invasion of Iraq, was that the US was anti-Islamic; Iraq confirmed it to a very high degree, and I have no doubt that it has driven thousands of the formerly apathetic into religiously-motivated fanatics, all over the world. This is a Very Bad Thing.
No, invading Iraq was not the worst decision in the history of US foreign policy. Nor, for that matter, was Vietnam. The distinction probably belongs to the War of 1812 - among other things, this was the war that got Washington sacked. Hard to trump that.
Good point, and I almost added that same idea to my post. So, I’ll take this rare opportunity to say that I agree 100% with all your posts on this subject so far-- it’s nice to see eye to eye for once with someone I rarely agree with! 
One crucial difference between Vietnam and Iraq, IMHO, is that in the case of the former the US was drawn in gradually by perceived obligations to an ally (the French). In addition, there was the spectre of “global Communism,” which, while it did not really apply to Vietnam in the sense that the powers-that-were thought it did, was far more real than “mushroom clouds over New York in 45 minutes.”
The difference seemed to be between tiptoeing into a pool of quicksand and taking a running leap into it. While wearing ankle weights.
I think invading Iraq was a worse mistake for a couple of reasons:
First, Vietnam happened within the context of the cold war. Although the US lost the war, it did not upset the bipolar structure of the global power structure. Ultimately, Vietnam was a great tragedy because it was a great loss of life over something that was not in in the US’ vital interests.
The Iraq invasion (specifically, America’s loss in Iraq), greatly upsets the global power structure. The world is no longer balanced by two opposing super powers. The US was more in a position of Britain in the 19th to early 20th century and in invading Iraq, the US has, I believe hastened its lost of influence and contributed to global destabilization. It has also unleashed long simering sectarian tensions that I think will spread outside of Iraq.
Finally, the Iraq invasion represents a great missed opportunity. The 9/11 attacks rallied the world around the US in a way that hasn’t been seen since the end of WWII. Had the US pursued fully the war in Afghanistan, rebuilt that nation and worked with NATO to do so, I believe the US could have seized upon the opportunity presented to re-establish itself as a global leader both politically and culturally. Instead, the Bush administration has squandered that good will and it is unlikely to ever exist again.
Another crucial difference is that the middle east has some strategic importance to the US, while at the time of the war, Vietnam was a global backwater.
I believe Vietnam still ranks as worse than Iraq (so far). At least in terms of body count. I don’t know about relative cost (adjusted for inflation).
However, US involvement in Vietnam was neither unilateral nor, strictly speaking, a single decision. Eisenhower got us interested in French Indochina in an advisory capacity, to bolster against what was the very real threat of Communist expansion. Kennedy increased involvement, Johnson escalated the effort manyfold and committed us to a ground war, and Nixon (despite repeated promises to pull out) continued the war until social consensus was almost universally against it. The invasion of Iraq, on the other hand, was essesntially the singleminded work–justified by pushing very sensitive emotional buttons and [del]falsifying[/del]manipulating evidence–of one Administration. While the effects of Vietnam may end up being still greater than whatever the aftermath of Iraq is (although the Middle East is a more valuable strategic and economic resource to the US than Southeast Asia ever was), I think that Iraq qualifies as being on par with the worst policy decisions every made by the US Government.
That’s very true; and then there are policy decisions (like the Louisiana Purchase and the Alaskan Purchase) that were at least mildly unpopular in their day but which turned out to be outstandingly perceptive moves.
Stranger
There is one small difference in the beginning of the two bad cases. The Vietnam adventure was like the frog in the pan of water that is being gradually heated. The Iraq case is more like a frog standing on the rim of a boiling pot and jumping in. That is, Vietnam was not a decision. It was a whole bunch of them in series. Which is worse is hard to say. For Vietnam, at every step in the path it’s possible to say, "It seemed like a good idea at the time. I don’t think that’s possible for Iraq.
Yes we could have but it was impossible to take the necessary steps. Even before the election of the Nazi’s the rest of Europe and the US could have aided Germany in its disasterous inflation. The rest of Europe and the US could have read Mein Kampf and when the first camp at Dachau was built we could have seen that Hitler was deadly serious about the things he wrote in the book.
However, doing something would have meant raising, training and equipping large military forces which just plain wasn’t going to happen in the midst of the great economic depression.
But “worst” has to be considered in relation to consequences - recent decisions have had much more potential to achieve that honor.
The speed with which the President realized it was a fuckup, and the actions he took as a consequence, also have to be considered. Bush has shown no signs even yet that he knows it, unlike any other President in a comparable situation that I can think of. If he does know it, he has responded to that knowledge not at all.
The basis for making the decision has to be considered, too. The real reasons for Bush’s invasion have been such a mishmash of rationalizations that it’s hard to credit him for actually believing any of it. The comparable fuckups we’ve been discussing all were based on at least some sincerity, combined with naivete and simple ignorance of the facts, but none compare in terms of adamantly *rejecting * any facts that did not support the preconceived decision, and eliminating anyone who might dare mention the possibility. LBJ *may * have lied us into Vietnam escalation (allow him the Costanza Defense for Tonkin Gulf), and furthermore inherited US ground involvement. Bush *did * lie us into invading Iraq - there is no factual debate about that anymore, and hasn’t for a long time.
All that said, there was still a chance that an invaded Iraq could have been left in the hands of a different strongman, no better than Saddam but with a different name, and that could have been considered a success. The decision to destroy all of Iraq’s governmental institutions, and the decision not to do any planning for after the invasion, and the decision to leave Osama alone and pull troops from Afghanistan, are the 3 main fuckups here, but they only compounded the decision to “Fuck Saddam, I’m taking him out” - that is better described as a criminal act than a fuckup.
John, Hitler was *not * being contained, Saddam was, and Bush knew it too. So should you.
and the world was balanced by 2 opposing super powers before the war? The Berlin wall collapsed a couple decades ago.
no, the US was already losing influence-- as American jobs move overseas and other countries improve their own technology. Japanese products have dominated American markets for a couple decades. Chinese and Indian products dominate in the next couple decades–not due to the Iraq war, but because the Chinese are learning, like the Japanese did, to produce good quality.
the Iran-Iraq war started a couple decades ago, . The US didn’t unleash it.
What is spreading outside of Iraq is not sectarian hatred (between Sunni and Shiites)–it is anti-western hatred. And that started on Sept 11. before the US invaded Iraq. It will continue spreading; Not because of American soldiers in Iraq, but because Muslim fanatics have learned that the west fears them and is willing to surrender. (e.g. Danish cartoonists)
That was only a temporary burst of emotion–the same way the entire Democratic party rallied around the White House after 9/11.
The good will never really amounted to anything concrete. Russia’s support of Iran is not due to squandered goodwill because of American mistakes in Iraq–it’s due to Russian self interest. The US would not have gained more support for its interests (such as restraining Iran’s nukes) even if the Iraqi war never happened.
The OP asks if Iraq was the worst decision ever. I dont think it will have as much negative effect as the Anti-Bush people think. America is losing its position as global leader for a lot of reasons, and the Iraqi war won’t really change that.
I agree with this. Bush had a tremendous opportunity on September 11 that he never took advantage of. I would have preferred an international response to Al Qaeda and perhaps a national effort to develop alternative sources of energy (and expand conservation programs).
I think the number of American deaths in Iraq is relatively low because of better body armor and medical care. But there are many soldiers returning with amputated limbs and brain injuries.