Iran, Vietnam, and the will to win: An American perspective

The notoriously eccentric Gen. George Patton was one of the few authentic military geniuses ever produced by my native United States, an audacious zealot for war of movement and one of military history’s most memorable orators.

In a speech given to his Third Army in June of 1944 and immortalized by George C. Scott’s electrifying performance in Patton (1970), the general apprised his men of their heritage, their advantages, their duties, their capabilities, and their prospects. He reckoned that the Germans were in serious trouble:

“Now, we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. You know, by God, I actually pity these poor **** we're going up against. By God, I do.”

By the time the film made the general famous for a new generation, the US was well on its way to losing a war in which it had enjoyed most of the advantages with which it fought World War II. American society was riven by discord—bitter and often violent–about the war, and demoralization was rife among personnel in a military still led by many of the same officers and non-coms who had dispatched the Axis.

Patton had told his men, “Americans have never lost and will never lose a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” Hateful it may be, but we lost in Vietnam, and we don’t appear very adept at learning from the experience.

As the Vietnam struggle dragged on, goals became murky, the public lost confidence in an administration that was less than forthcoming about actual conditions, and the media directed attention to the failure of a high-tech juggernaut to finish the job.

Sound familiar?

Whatever may be said about strategy and tactics, the real failure in Vietnam was in the realm of that spirit that Patton was talking about. The war certainly was not a failure in terms of damage inflicted on the enemy, which was vast almost beyond comprehension:

The explosive tonnage dropped on Vietnam by the US added up to more than three times the amount dropped on the Axis in all theaters of World War II. Nearly half a million tons of napalm–a Harvard product–joined the mix. Numerous cities were reduced to rubble. Destruction of farms transformed a prodigious rice-producing country into a famished importer of basic foodstuffs. In an effort to deny the enemy his sanctuaries and ambuscades, the US dropped tens of millions of gallons of herbicides, enough to defoliate an eighth of the forests.

The people who counted enemy bodies basked in the approbation of a master statistician, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and they were kept busy. In all, the US suffered 58,000 dead against an estimated three to four million on the other side.

But we lost. The other side simply would not give up.

I think of these matters when I hear about the trillions of dollars in damage the US and Israel have inflicted on Iran, the devastation of its infrastructure, the defanging of its military, the decimation of its leadership.Yet the struggle continues: a ceasefire here, an extension there, threats, condemnations, promises of the breakthrough that never quite happens.

In the Vietnam War, the military at least got a good running start before the conduct of the war began to confuse and dishearten the public. For a while, the goal appeared clear and sensible. Not so with today’s conflict.

We have been told that Iran was an imminent threat to the US, but Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has said that defining “imminent” is for the president to do. Thank goodness my childhood did not include an encounter with a dodgeball player of her prowess. Counter-terrorism maven Joe Kent did define “imminent,” said there was no such threat, and resigned. The Army Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Navy have both gone to the chopping block at the behest of the hawkishly Zionistic Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

We have been told that we commenced hostilities for Israel’s sake and that Israel didn’t get us into this. We have been told that the war is not about regime change and that it is. We have been told that it’s not about nation-building, but I assume that if we demolish the nation, someone will help rebuild it, and if that someone isn’t us, one of our rivals will do the job and reap the rewards.

We have been told that talks are occurring and that they aren’t. Deadlines move around like a squirrel on methamphetamine. President Trump has said at least twice that the war is essentially over. In a rhetorical adventure peculiar even by his standards, he said he will determine when Iran has surrendered unconditionally.

Our leaders ought to be aware, with fear and trembling, that the average American of sixty years ago was a paragon of wisdom, erudition, and maturity compared with the average American of today, who knows no history–military or any other kind–who struggles to read a map, who is habituated by situation comedies to expect quick and neat solutions to every problem, and who has the attention span of a fruit fly.

Public opinion has been against the Iran war from the very beginning. The Republican Party is divided and appeared headed for trouble in the upcoming Congressional elections even before the war began. The Democrats would oppose a cancer cure if Donald Trump found one, and the major media outlets are almost all staffed, from CEO to trainee janitor, with Democrats.

As of this writing, the ceasefire has been extended indefinitely, objectives are no clearer, and US policy seems to consist mainly of reacting to whatever Iran does and says. Meanwhile the Israelis go on breaking crockery in Lebanon.

The US is running out of time to figure out why, exactly, we did this and to convince the public that it hasn’t all been an idiotic blunder. Iran is playing for time, and succeeding.

As one of my coaches used to say, “If you don’t wanna, you ain’t gonna.” And that was an admonition for people who knew what they wanted in the first place.

Lot Hildegard is a freelance journalist who spent two years at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and has taught in a Palestinian university and in an American Muslim school. His social commentary and short fiction have appeared in an assortment of print and online publications.