Iraq: The New Vietnam

Iraq: The New Vietnam

America’s foreign policies are designed for maintaining and promoting the favorable position and security of the United States in the international area. Conflict arises when the vision of foreign policy is not clear. Article II, section II of the Constitution states the President is “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States”, giving him an advantage in the conduct of foreign policy. However, the President does not have the authority to make foreign policy alone. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to check the President’s foreign policy powers. As we have seen in the past, the President alone, in his own ideology, can order the United States military to take action abroad and decide when they come home. We have come a long way since the old ideology of isolationism disintegrated when Japan bombed Peal Harbor on December 7, 1941. We have since embraced a foreign policy of globalism that was introduced by President Harry S. Truman’s Truman Doctrine of 1947. The doctrine aimed to contain communist attempts to conquer noncommunist countries and stop the domino effect of communism. This doctrine directed America’s foreign policy from the moment it went into affect until the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Former President Lyndon B. Johnson and current President George W. Bush draw striking similarities on guiding foreign policy and how war shaped each presidency. Johnson is for trying to stop the spread of communism during the Vietnam War, just as Bush will be remembered for trying to control the spread of terrorist ideals and dictatorship during the Iraq War. Both the Vietnam War and the War in Iraq were wars of choice with different objectives. They are also similar in that deceit and misrepresentation were employed by the US Government, first to engage US forces and then to keep them there.

“If we don't stop the Reds in South Vietnam, tomorrow they will be in Hawaii, and next week they will be in San Francisco.” President Johnson gave this statement to our public in order to rally support and create a sense of apathy in 1966, only one year after the initial sending of combat troops into Vietnam. Johnson also used the Gulf of Tonkin incident for escalating troop numbers in Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an alleged pair of attacks by North Vietnamese naval forces against two American destroyers on August 2nd and August 4th of 1964. Congress then passed the Southeast Asia Resolution, giving President Johnson the justification he needed to assist any Southeast Asian Country who was jeopardized by communist aggression. This resolution was so controversial because Johnson knew the second attack never happened but used to his advantage. Once news began to leak that what the government was saying about progress in Vietnam and what the public was seeing through media coverage had been misconstrued, the public began criticizing the Vietnam War.

It is ironic that President Bush made a similar attempt to create this so-called apathy with the following statement, ““Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York or St. Louis or Los Angeles.” After the September 11th attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush formulated the Bush Doctrine which changed foreign policy by arguing for a policy of pre-emptive war of the United States or its allies were threatened by terrorists or by rogue states that are engaged in the production of weapons of mass destruction. The Bush Doctrine states that the duty of the United States is to pursue unilateral military action when acceptable multilateral solutions cannot be found. Like the policy of pre-emptive, this aspect of the Bush Doctrine reflects a belief that grave threats require decisive action, regardless of world opinion.

President Bush believed