Iraq: The Vietnam Winning Strategy?

Fred Barnes may have outdone himself with this:

‘We’re Going to Win’ The president finally has a plan for victory.

That’s only his title. Barnes is arguing that the Keane-Kagan plan of adding more troops is the true path to victory. But this is where Barnes outdoes himself:

The Keane-Kagan plan is not revolutionary. Rather, it is an application of a counterinsurgency approach that has proved to be effective elsewhere, notably in Vietnam. There, Gen. Creighton Abrams cleared out the Viet Cong so successfully that the South Vietnamese government took control of the country. Only when Congress cut off funds to South Vietnam in 1974 were the North Vietnamese able to win.

Where does Barnes get this lunacy? Judd thinks it can all be found in Bob Woodward’s State of Denial:

Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw it through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, 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.