Thread by @MMazarr

There's been bitter political criticism of the administration and Biden over what is indisputably a fiasco in planning and execution. But let's subject other post-war presidents to the "how did you end the war" test and see how they fare ...
newsweek.com/lindsey-graham…

Nixon: Pretty obvious (can we all say "decent interval"?). Talking w/Kissinger Nixon contradicted his public stance: "I look at the tide of history out there, South Vietnam probably is never gonna survive anyway." And injected political considerations too
millercenter.org/the-presidency…

Kissinger's reply: "If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. ... 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." Many tens of thousands of US allies left behind; est. 200-300K S Vietnamese imprisoned, tortured, many killed
VERDICT: FAIL

#2: Reagan and Lebanon in 1984. Marine barracks attack, failing mission. Reagan says, Lebanon is tough, "But that is no reason to turn our backs and to cut and run. If we do, we'll be sending one signal to terrorists everywhere"
reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speec…

And then he proceeds to do exactly that. Friedman wrote: “The Marines spent a total of 533 days in Beirut, suffered 240 deaths and more than 130 wounded and accomplished virtually nothing. ... Yet when they pulled out of Beirut on ... Feb. 26, 1984 ..."
nytimes.com/1984/04/08/mag…

" ... many of them complained of feeling utterly empty, of having lost friends in combat without having been able to bring any meaning to their deaths. For soldiers, there can be nothing more confusing or hurtful."
VERDICT: FAIL

#3: The Gulf War. US hints to Shiites + Kurds to revolt then stands aside and literally watches them die. "Having decided not to intervene further in Iraq, the Bush Administration found itself today in the awkward position at the United Nations ..."
nytimes.com/1991/04/04/wor…

" ... of seeming reluctant to back appeals for strong action to halt the repression of the Kurds. Many political figures and foreign policy experts argue that the position taken by the Administration in recent weeks is morally indefensible"

"I feel frustrated any time innocent civilians are being slaughtered," President George H. W. Bush said at the time. "But the United States and these other countries with us in this coalition did not go there to settle all the internal affairs of Iraq."

Robert W. Tucker, a historian of international relations, told the NYT: "The Administration's policy has its own logic, but there is an equally strong sense that by doing nothing it will be viewed as a betrayal of values that we have always seen ourselves as championing."

The US apologized in 2011, but "Abdul al-Haidari, a journalist in Najaf who participated in the uprising, said: 'The apology does not change history. The people were exterminated ... under the watch of US troops, who did not move a muscle'"
VERDICT: FAIL
nytimes.com/2011/11/09/wor…

These cases show the impossibility of extricating a nation from the limited use of military force w/o moral crimes. Yet staying is no better: Prolonging a war has terrible costs. It is a reminder, again, to set a very, very high bar against the use of "limited" military force

As Thomas Friedman phrased a lesson of Lebanon: "As one American official in the Middle East put it: 'Never commit yourself to a problem that requires military force unless you are ready to go all the way and use that force to effect.'"