LBJ Goes to War

• like all Democratic presidents post-WW II, Johnson feared political attacks from the far right for losing a portion of the world to communism; believes if Vietnam falls, he'll be attacked as being soft on communism and his grand domestic agenda would be undermined
  
• at the time, Vietnam considered a small matter on a much broader geopolitical front
  
• this underestimated the resolve of the Vietnamese to fight to the death to gain independence
  
• escalation turns out to be a gigantic mistake; but at the time, the U.S. thought it could outlast the Vietnamese easily
  

How Not to End Another President's War (L.B.J. Edition)

Johnson's eagerness for quick success in Vietnam rested on a number of fears. First, he worried that if Vietnam went down it would provoke another round of McCarthyism: critics would attack him for weakness in fighting the Communists and blame him for losing Vietnam the way they had blamed Truman for losing China. That could cripple his ability to be an effective foreign policy leader. He also feared that a Communist victory in Vietnam would embolden the Russians and the Chinese to new acts of aggression in Europe and Asia and increase the risks of a nuclear war. Last, but certainly not least, he worried that his hope of becoming a great reform president, who changed the domestic life of the nation, would fall victim to a foreign policy debate over Vietnam.

As Johnson soon learned, despite his protests to the contrary, he could not have guns and butter. And though, as Lady Bird Johnson said, Vietnam "wasn't the war he wanted. The one he wanted was on poverty and ignorance and disease ... ", once he committed himself to winning the war with a broad bombing campaign and 545,000 combat troops, he lost the freedom to build a Great Society. Protests against the loss of American and Vietnamese lives and the commitment of billions of dollars to fight the war drained away the country's energy for large-scale domestic improvements.

And:

Iraqis are too shrewd to fall for an `invisible' occupation

We are at the beginning of the end. On Tuesday, US troops left Iraq's cities, and in two years they will leave the country. Or so the official story goes. In reality, most of the "withdrawing" forces are merely relocating to forward operating bases where they appear to be hunkering down for a long entr'acte offstage in expensive, built-to-last facilities.

(...)

the thousands of troops that will remain in Iraq will be restyled as "trainers" and "advisers"; American aircraft will retain their free hand. Moreover, the Iraqi and US governments' focus on appearances has increased their need for secrecy about the true number and nature of the withdrawals, compounding suspicions of foul play.

(...)

In 1932 as now, rhetoric about withdrawal was aimed at global as much as Iraqi opinion. Instead of attending only to appearances, stoking the fears of a people familiar with nominal independence, the US and Iraqi governments should deliver the reality Iraqis and Americans want: "Yes for independence."

As Johnson said:

"I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucifed either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved-the Great Society-in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs.... But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."