George C. Wilson: Beware the Iran Hawks

Johnson said the last thing his generals and admirals wanted was another war on top of the one they were waging so unsuccessfully in Vietnam. Then, as now in Iraq, the armed services found themselves in a quagmire and strained to fill their ranks. The Vietnam surge reached half a million U. S. troops on the ground in South Vietnam but we still could not win that asymmetric war. Also, in another parallel with Iraq, Johnson feared going to war against another country in the region would drag other nations into the conflict.

"What's wrong in telling the North Koreans they must get the ship to us by a certain date or face the consequences?" then CIA director Richard Helms asked Johnson in 1968 in discussing how to avenge North Korea's seizure of the USS Pueblo, according to formerly top secret papers declassified by the State Department.

"The simple answer to that is that we do not want a war with the Chinese and the Soviets," Johnson replied.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are far more cautious about going to war than the general public realizes because they know how easy it is to get into one and how hard it is to get out, recoiled from the idea of further stretching their forces to fight a brand new war in Asia. Wrote the late Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. in his book, "On Watch:"

Read More