in March 2003 I was on the tip of the US
military sphere during the invasion of
Iraq as an embedded reporter with the US
Army's 3rd infantry battalion on the eve
of the invasion battalion commander
Scott Rutter looked at me and he said
Carolyn we don't gamble
we take calculated risks as I saw it the
difference between a gamble and
calculated risks was like the difference
between craps and poker in poker if you
look at the cards and you pay attention
to your opponents you can expand the
odds of winning
whereas in craps it's always a roll of
the dice there is absolutely no doubt
that on the eve of the invasion the
United States held the best cards they
had the best forces they had the best
arms they had the best technology the
question was did they understand their
opponents now on the eve of the invasion
many of the men came up to me separately
and they told me that they felt like
their grandfathers must have felt in
1944 before the us-led and before the
u.s. liberated France that is they
thought they were the Americans the
Iraqis were the French and Saddam
Hussein was Hitler initially they seemed
to be vindicated the day after the
invasion as we drove along the highway
on the outskirts of Na Surya a Shiite
town in southern Iraq the Shiites came
to the roadside and raised their thumbs
shouted out go USA yay Bush now as an
Israeli I did share their exhilaration
at the scene but my historic reference
point was not France in 1944 it was
Lebanon in 1982 in 1982 Israel invaded
Lebanon in order to defeat the PLO which
at that point was fighting a terror war
against Israel northern Israel and over
the years many of my friends who had
been young soldiers during the invasions
had told me about how when they entered
Lebanon the Shiites and the Christians
in the South greeted them as liberators
as their heroes when the idea they threw
rice at them as our forces walked up to
Beirut their path was basically as
uninhibited as the Americans were was as
they drove through Iraq now at a certain
point back in 2003 the convoy of the
battalion stopped on the side of the
highway men we're throwing cigarettes
and candies at the people gathered on
the roadside and after a few moments of
being stopped a lot of the men started
walking towards the convoy now with me
with memories of Lebanon racing through
my brain well I couldn't restrain myself
I shouted out at the men what are you
doing move them back they might be
carrying grenades a sergeant and one of
the cars behind me heard me he pulled
out his m16 and pushed the Shiites back
the men around me looked at me with a
mixture of astonishment and annoyance
why because I was a buzz killer now a
week after that happened four of the men
in the two sevens became the first US
casualties to die in a terrorist attack
during the Iraq war when a roadblock
that they were manning when the highway
was attacked by a bomber they opened up
a trunk of a car
and the whole car exploded in front of
them killing them and the terrorists and
another accomplice now after that
happened the commanders of the two-seven
got it OK ROCK in 2003 not France in
1944 and they changed the rules of
engagement from then on anybody on the
on the road facing them was considered
hostile until proven otherwise and they
engaged them but while it only took them
one horrible occurrence in order to
understand where they were leadership
back in Washington never really got it
they continued to insist that the Iraqis
were the pari jhin's they kept
said all that was needed in order to win
the war was to defeat Saddam or to
defeat the Shiite and Sunni militias or
to have elections or to have more
elections or to have a constitution or
to have a better constitution but they
never accepted that their enemy was
their enemy it took the US government
three years to acknowledge that
terrorists were fighting US soldiers
3,000 men died in the meantime and they
launched the search but even after they
launched the search they refused to
acknowledge that the engine propelling
the war was Iran no matter how valiantly
the men fought and they fought valiantly
for eight years in Iraq the leadership
back in Washington refused to
acknowledge the nature of the enemy and
therefore refused to put together a
strategy that fit the war that they were
presented with and as a result today
there is no more Iraq now in a way the
u.s. analogy between Iraq and France was
apt it's just that it wasn't 1944 that
they should have thought about but 1940
and the Americans weren't the Americans
they were the French now I'm sure all of
you have heard of the Maginot Line the
line of Defense's that the French built
in the 1930s to protect themselves
against the Germans for us the Maginot
Line was always considered a punch line
right but for the French but the fact of
the matter is that my late professor
from the Harvard Kennedy School of
Government earnest May explained that
the Maginot Line was no joke it was the
last word in technology it represented
what was considered to be a victory of
Technology over manpower as he said it
was a smart bomb of its day the
precision bomb of its day now one of the
things that he taught us for the main
lesson that professor may explain to us
at the time was that almost everything
that we know about the French from 1940
is wrong and it's based not on facts not
on accuracy but on German propaganda for
instance the French weren't weak the
French military was more powerful than
the German military from the perspective
of the platforms and from the
perspective of the technology that they
to bear the French weren't cowards
throughout the 1930s particularly in
late 1930s the people of French were
itching for war with Germany they wanted
to defeat the Nazis they weren't cowards
they weren't defeatist in seven weeks of
fighting the invading Germans a hundred
and twenty eight thousand according to
may 128 thousand French soldiers died
200,000 casualties
that's about the combined total of US
casualties killed in action and wounded
from the Korean and Vietnam wars can buy
but they lost these men in seven weeks
the French weren't poorly led Paul
Renard their prime minister was a pretty
good leader so what happened how is it
that the French failed so miserably in
their stand against the Germans what
happened well as Professor may explained
they didn't get the Germans now the
French looked at the math they said
we're stronger than the Germans so we
build the Maginot Line along the most
probable path of invasion because only a
madman would invade Iran through the
Ardennes Forest which is basically
impassable now who were they facing
Adolf Hitler the French knew a lot about
the relative capabilities but they
didn't get Adolf Hitler they cared about
life and casualties they were Democrats
they had to think about winning the next
election who were they facing in battle
a diabolical dictator who didn't think
in terms of one battle or another he
envisioned a right of Germany that was
going to rule the world for a thousand
years so their basis for thinking about
the Germans was completely irrelevant to
who the Germans were it didn't make any
difference to Hitler how many men he
lost in battle when he was fighting a
war for a thousand years and so as they
say the most people on the ground in
Paris when the Nazis watched in
their most palpable emotion was not
defeat was not sadness it was shock they
was shocked they thought that they were
going to win now the truth has had the
French had more time they probably would
have come to their senses the problem
was that throughout the 1930s they were
preparing for war against an enemy that
they refused to recognize the nature of
they projected who they were on the on
the Nazis and said we wouldn't invade
through the our den we wouldn't
sacrifice men for nothing therefore they
want they wouldn't understand the
Germans now it's not necessary for you
to do that
it's not necessary to lose it's not
necessary to think the best of your
opponent it's not necessary to project
your own values on people who stand
opposed to you you can do it otherwise
for instance take Ronald Reagan now I
grew up in the United States in Reagan's
America I was a teenager when he was
president and I have to admit that
growing up in America I had no idea what
was happening
and I had no idea who Reagan was was
only later when I was well into
adulthood that I recognized what
happened and who Reagan was because when
we were growing up we were told by the
media that Reagan was a fanatical
ideologue and kind of dumb and therefore
growing up I believe that Reagan was a
fanatical ideal up and kind of dumb
Reagan came into office in 1981 two
years after the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan ended day tante that had
existed in soviet-american relations
during the 1970s when Reagan came into
office he wasn't interested in
resuscitating date and he said that his
goal as president was to defeat the
Soviet Union to defeat the evil empire
he didn't want to be Kissinger and Nixon
he wanted to be Ronald Reagan so in
order to advance that aim he said about
advancing a strategy of confrontation
with the Soviets what did he do in order
to advance that aim well he increased
massively the sight of the size of the
US defense budget he modernized and
built new nuclear warheads
he initially
created the Strategic Defense Initiative
Star Wars whose goal was to build a
missile shield that would block I
incoming ICBMs from the Soviet Union and
he deployed short-range nuclear bombs to
Germany in order to blunt the impact of
the Red Army as conventional force
he wasn't congratulated by the media for
carrying out exactly the strategy in
order to advance the goal that he had
been elected to accomplish rather he was
pilloried in the 1980s in the early
1980s in the United States
Reagan was portrayed as a madman who was
bringing the world to the brink of
nuclear Armageddon as a teenager who was
a consumer of pop culture it was in the
pop culture staying the TV movie ABC's
TV movie the day after that portrayed a
Soviet bombing nuclear bombing of Kansas
City it was seen by over a hundred
million people absolutely everybody
around me anyway was sure that Reagan
was crazy but then something unaccepted
unexpected happened in 1985 Mikhail
Gorbachev rose to power in the Soviet
Union now Mikhail Gorbachev after
Brezhnev and a bunch of really old guys
who died in office after six or eight
months he was young he was photogenic he
smiled he was married to right you said
Gorbachev who many of you I'm sure
remember was pretty she had a warm smile
they were out of central casting really
for communism with a human face now if
Reagan had been the fanatical ideologue
that people had portrayed him as
Gorbachev might have been able to beat
him why because if he had been the
ideological fanatic said people
portrayed him as being he wouldn't have
noticed the significance when Gorbachev
came into office and he began to enact
unprecedented policies of political and
economic liberalisation he would have
said same thing same thing evil empire
he's evil let's confront him let's build
more nukes right that's what he would
have said but instead Reagan recognized
that
something was new here perestroika glass
notes that was new and so he realized
that he had to develop a new strategy
for confronting Gorbachev I mean think
about it if you're playing baseball and
suddenly the hard Bowl turns into a
stick of butter and you hit it with your
baseball bat you're not gonna get a
homerun you'll get a gooey back so you
build a new tool for dealing with a new
Strich allenge and what did he do he
moved from a strategy of confrontation
to cooperation no he didn't change his
goal of defeating the evil empire he
simply went about it differently Reagan
began negotiating arms control agreement
with Gorbachev and what he wanted was an
agreement that expanded American power
and contracted Soviet power in order to
bring about the demise of the Soviet
Union through peaceful means with nice
Gorbachev first what happened was they
went to the negotiating table he was
offered a deal that did the exact
opposite it expanded Soviet strength and
contracted American strength well Reagan
ignored it now if he had been a normal
run-of-the-mill American leader Reagan
might have taken it anyway why because
Gorbachev was adored by the media he was
men of the year for Time magazine in
1987 in 1989 and then in 1990 was men of
the decade so if he had gone with this
media superhero and just laid down and
given him everything he wanted he could
have ridden into retirement on waves of
adulation the likes of which we haven't
seen since I don't know when but instead
he said no this isn't a good deal I'm
going to get a debt died I don't want it
and he walked away from the table
everybody hated him Republicans
Democrats the media cool everybody said
he was horrible then he came back to the
table when he was offered a better deal
got a better deal that built on American
strength Soviet weaknesses he signed it
went into retirement three years later
the Soviet Union dissolved without war
and America was stronger from a social
perspective than it had been since the
1960s now there are a lot of differences
between the Iraq war between the Battle
of France and between the Cold War and
Reagan's presidency but there is one
lesson that we can take from this
comparison of the three of them
Ragan succeeded where others failed
because he led without illusions he knew
who he was he knew what he believed
but his intellectual and moral universe
allowed for people to be themselves
recognize things enemies friends for
what they were and allowed that space
for them and watch them and listen to
them question is what about us
can we do that can you do that are you
sure enough about who you are in order
to be able to stick to your guns and not
lose your head when somebody whistles or
smiles in your direction are we capable
of believing people of listening to
people when they say that they hate us
how about our leaders because I would
submit to you that the difference
between a leader and a fanatic between
someone who is weak and someone who is
strong between an adolescent and a
grown-up is the ability to take the
world for what it is accept people for
who they are
and deal with it thank you