The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

Reality vs. Idealism America’s passion, despite the best of intentions, eventually becomes the problem, especially in a foreign society engulfed by an enormous U.S. pres- ence. No one questions the awesome power of our armed forces, irrefutably demonstrated twice in wars with Iraq. And no one underestimates the ser- vice or the sacrifice of the professional military and their families. But the ability to win on the battle- field should not be mistaken for the capacity to reinvent another country’s social, political and cultural funda- mentals. We have chased this fantasy in Vietnam and Iraq with equally dis- appointing and tragic results. Why should our plan to transform Iraq be any more successful than the protract- ed effort to transform Vietnam that cost so many lives and so much trea- sure? Despite the stumbling attempts at nationbuilding, our obsession with the distinctive American model always seems to cloud our judgment about a world of many different historical and cultural backgrounds. We tend to see the world that we want rather than the world as it is. Others simply do not define freedom and democracy in the same way that we have cultivated and worked out over 230 years. Lamentably, that lesson from Vietnam has been lost on the highway to Baghdad. 52 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 Why should our plan to transform Iraq be any more successful than the decade-long effort to transform Vietnam?