Lon Nol, Muslim Style

by Dan Jacoby

They say those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat its mistakes. And while reasoning by analogy is often suspect, it can help determine the nearly certain consequences of many actions before we take them.

Over the past month, George W. Bush and his mouthpieces have ramped up "pressure" on Iran. He has gone so far as to accuse the Iranian government (or part of the government, or rather a group associated with the government, or maybe they're just in the same country as the - well, you get the idea) of supplying Iraqi "insurgents" with weapons and other support.

He may be right. But his response, which amounts to a thinly veiled threat to invade, or at least bomb, Iran, is incredibly stupid in view of recent history.

Okay, it's time for a history recap:

In 1969, Richard Nixon secretly ordered U.S. forces to bomb Cambodia. At the time, we were deeply embroiled in the Vietnamese War. While Cambodia was officially neutral, it was well known that North Vietnamese army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) forces were using eastern Cambodia as staging areas for attacks into South Vietnam. In fact, Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk had entered into agreements with North Vietnam to allow them to use his country.

While Nixon's secret (and highly illegal) bombing didn't stop the NVA or the VC, it did succeed in killing over half a million Cambodian farmers. Needless to say, this didn't help our cause.

Nixon's next step was to order the CIA to remove Prince Sihanouk from power and install Premier Lon Nol as the country's head of state. Apparently, Nixon figured that since the Cambodian government was helping the NVA and the VC, it needed to be replaced with someone who would help us.

It didn't work.

Not only was Lon Nol incapable of stopping NVA and VC forces, he angered his own people, so much so that Cambodian peasants killed his brother (Lon Nil) and served up his liver, sliced and cooked, as a snack. A couple of weeks before U.S. finished leaving Vietnam, Lon Nol fled, the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, and the killing fields, where about one in three Cambodians died, began operation.

Now we are stuck in an Iraqi quagmire reminiscent of the Vietnam War, with Iraq's neighbor Iran supplying the people who are fighting against our occupation (and fighting against each other, just as the Vietnamese were doing). But it is clearly expecting far too much of George W. Bush to think that he could learn from the past.

Bush is obviously itching to bomb and invade Iran. Perhaps he believes that he can install a government there that will be more amenable to his goals, or perhaps he just enjoys killing lots of Muslims. Whatever Bush's reason, if indeed he has any reason left, any escalation of our military actions in the region is certain to backfire.

Could the only solution be to stop George W. Bush, by any means necessary?

 

Copyright 2007, Dan Jacoby

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