More than any other candidate in the Republican presidential field, John McCain argues that his foreign policy “expertise” makes him qualified for the Oval Office. But when it comes to getting policy advice on international affairs, who does the senator turn to? None other than Henry Kissinger.
The Associated Press reports that McCain let the secret slip at a recent fundraiser at which the guest of honor was the former Secretary of State. “When I have a question about something that’s going on in the world, I call Dr. Kissinger and he is able to connect the dots for me,” McCain said, according to the AP. “It is easy to be an expert on one aspect of some international situation. He’s one of the only people I’ve ever known who can connect the entire scenario for you in a way that you understand the completeness of the challenge.”
I found this interesting for two reasons. First, during his 2000 presidential run, McCain had a far different perspective — he didn’t want Kissinger to have anything to do with his campaign. McCain’s fear, apparently, was that Kissinger “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.'” As is usually the case with McCain, he’s apparently changed his mind.
And second, if McCain is getting advice from Kissinger about foreign policy, the senator is almost certainly getting some misguided lessons.
In Bob Woodward’s State of Denial, we learned that Kissinger had become an important advisor to the Bush White House on the war in Iraq. Kissinger perceived “wobbliness” within the administration on Iraq, and told the president that the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to “stick it out.”
In his writing, speeches and private comments, Kissinger claimed that the United States had essentially won the war in 1972, only to lose it because of the weakened resolve of the public and Congress.
In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled “Lessons for an Exit Strategy,” Kissinger wrote, “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.” He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House. Victory had to be the goal, he told all. Don’t let it happen again. Don’t give an inch, or else the media, the Congress and the American culture of avoiding hardship will walk you back.
Yes, Kissinger believes the United States should look at the war in Iraq and make it more like Vietnam.
For what it’s worth, Rick Perlstein set the historical record straight and explained just how wrong why Kissinger is.
To begin unraveling the true meaning of Kissinger’s advice to the White House, we have to go back to August 3, 1972. On that date, President Nixon repeated to the good doctor, his national security adviser, what he’d been saying in private since 1966: America’s war aim (standing up a pro-American and anti-Communist South Vietnamese government in Saigon) was a fantasy. “South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway,” the president sighed. But a presidential election was coming up. He had long before promised he was removing the U.S. presence, more-or-less victoriously (though “victory” was a word Nixon, by then, wisely avoided; instead, he called it “peace with honor”).
It was Kissinger, who had been shuttling back and forth to Paris for peace negotiations with the enemy, who named the dilemma: “We’ve got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which–after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January ’74, no one will give a damn.” Thus was confirmed what historians would come to call the “decent interval” strategy. Having pledged to Saigon–and American conservatives–that Communist troops would not be allowed in South Vietnam after a peace deal was signed, Kissinger negotiated the opposite. “Peace is at hand,” he announced on the eve of the 1972 presidential election, in one of his rare appearances before the TV cameras. The United States left the following spring; the Communists moved in; Saigon fell.
That’s not how Nixon and Kissinger told the story, of course. They blamed the defeat on a combination of the liberal congressmen who refused to vote for continued aid to South Vietnam in 1974 and Saigon’s own unfortunate lack of will.
And now, Kissinger has McCain’s ear and is “connecting the dots” for the Republican frontrunner.
If you like Bush’s approach to foreign policy, you’ll love President McCain.