Henry the K: Iraq war can’t be won
[from Cato’s daily email]
“Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer
the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, said Sunday the problems in Iraq
are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no
longer possible,” reports the Associated Press. “The faceless,
ubiquitous nature of Iraq’s insurgency, as well as the religious
divide between Shiite and Sunni rivals, makes negotiating peace more
complex, he said. ‘It is a more complicated problem,’ Kissinger said.
‘The Vietnam War involved states, and you could negotiate with
leaders who controlled a defined area.’… Kissinger said the best
way forward is to reconcile the differences between Iraq’s warring
sects with help from other countries. He applauded efforts to host an
international conference bringing together the permanent members of
the U.N. Security Council and Iraq’s neighbors — including Iran,
Washington’s longtime rival in the region.”