As we listened to Mr. Bush's speech, our thoughts raced back four decades to another president, John F. Kennedy. In 1963, the last year of his life, we watched from front-row seats as Kennedy tried to figure out how best to extricate American military advisers and instructors from Vietnam.
Although neither of us had direct responsibility on Vietnam decision-making, we each saw enough of the president to sense his growing frustration. In typical Kennedy fashion, he would lean back, in his Oval Office rocker, tick off all his options and then critique them:
Renege on the previous Eisenhower commitment, which Kennedy had initially reinforced, to help the beleaguered government of South Vietnam with American military instructors and advisers?
No, he knew that the American people would not permit him to do that.
Americanize the Vietnam civil war, as the military recommended and as his successor Lyndon Johnson sought ultimately to do, by sending in American combat units?
No, having learned from his experiences with Cuba and elsewhere that conflicts essentially political in nature did not lend themselves to a military solution, Kennedy knew that the United States could not prevail in a struggle against a Vietnamese people determined to oust, at last, all foreign troops from their country.
Moreover, he knew firsthand from his World War II service in the South Pacific the horrors of war and had declared at American University in June 1963: "This generation of Americans has had enough - more than enough - of war."
Declare "victory and get out," as George Aiken, the Republican senator from Vermont, would famously suggest years later?
No, in 1963 in Vietnam, despite assurances from field commanders, there was no more semblance of "victory" than there was in 2004 in Iraq when the president gave his "mission accomplished" speech on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Explore, as was always his preference, a negotiated solution?
No, he was unable to identify in the ranks of the disorganized Vietcong a leader capable of negotiating enforceable and mutually agreeable terms of withdrawal.
Insist that the South Vietnamese government improve its chances of survival by genuinely adopting the array of political, economic, land and administrative reforms necessary to win popular support?
No, Kennedy increasingly realized that the corrupt family and landlords propping up the dictatorship in South Vietnam would never accept or enforce such reforms
Eventually he began to understand that withdrawal was the viable option. From the spring of 1963 on, he began to articulate the elements of a three-part exit strategy, one that his assassination would prevent him from pursuing. The three components of Kennedy's exit strategy - well-suited for Iraq after the passage of a new constitution and the coming election - can be summarized as follows:
Make clear that we're going to get out. At a press conference on Nov. 14, 1963, the president did just that, stating, "That is our object, to bring Americans home."
Request an invitation to leave. Arrange for the host government to request the phased withdrawal of all American military personnel - surely not a difficult step in Iraq, especially after the clan statement last month calling for foreign forces to leave. In a May 1963 press conference, Kennedy declared that if the South Vietnamese government suggested it, "we would have some troops on their way home" the next day.
Bring the troops home gradually. Initiate a phased American withdrawal over an unannounced period, beginning immediately, while intensifying the training of local security personnel, bearing in mind that with our increased troop mobility and airlift capacity, American forces are available without being stationed in hazardous areas. In September 1963, Kennedy said of the South Vietnamese: "In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it." A month later, he said, "It would be our hope to lessen the number of Americans" in Vietnam by the end of the year.
President Kennedy had no guarantee that any of these three components would succeed. In the "fog of war," there are no guarantees; but an exit plan without guarantees is better than none at all.
If we leave Iraq at its own government's request, our withdrawal will be neither abandonment nor retreat. Law-abiding Iraqis may face more clan violence, Balkanization and foreign incursions if we leave; but they may face more clan violence, Balkanization and foreign incursions if we stay. The president has said we will not leave Iraq to the terrorists. Let us leave Iraq to the Iraqis, who have survived centuries of civil war, tyranny and attempted foreign domination.
Once American troops are out of Iraq, people around the world will rejoice that we have recovered our senses. What's more, the killing of Americans and the global loss of American credibility will diminish. As Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican and Vietnam veteran, said, "The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have." Defeatist? The real defeatists are those who say we are stuck there for the next decade of death and destruction.
In a memorandum to President Kennedy, roughly three months after his inauguration, one of us wrote with respect to Vietnam, "There is no clearer example of a country that cannot be saved unless it saves itself." Today, Iraq is an even clearer example
Theodore C. Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. were, respectively, special counsel and special assistant to President John F. Kennedy.
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Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
— Benjamin Franklin
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
John Adams from the " Treaty of Tripoly, article 11
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