History Repeats Itself: Hearts & Minds In Iraq

Army LTG Peter W. Chiarelli, the number 2 commander in Iraq stated that he will employ the winning of hearts and minds approach in Iraq. For those of you not familiar with that phrase "hearts and minds" it was a failed approach used in Vietnam, whereby U.S. forces attempted to win over the local population by performing various civic and humanitarian projects. It produced mixed results and most military historians consider it to have been a failed strategy.

Many parallels have been drawn between Iraq and Vietnam, not all of them correct. But consider this. Both conflicts began under false pretenses. Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and Iraq was the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Both wars bogged down the U.S. military due to surprisingly strong opposition from insurgent forces and both wars saw a U.S. President pouring in tremendous resources without obtaining positive results.

And now we are seeing the reintroduction of a strategy which did not work in Vietnam, and will not work in Iraq. The fiasco in Iraq will drag out for many more years and in my opinion it will be due to the fact that George W. rushed into this conflict without having any clear strategy for victory. Too many items were overlooked and now we are faced with this quagmire.