Sunday, June 19, 2005

Highlighting the alternative

For the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnam's prime minister will visit the United States. And as part of the trip, Phan Van Khai will get an audience with Bush at the White House.

An interesting event, but it's hard to see where Bush is coming from here. It sure wasn't a human rights angle, seeing as that protesters were out to note Vietman's poor record on that front. It does highlight Vietnam's economic emergence and help to put money in American pockets, which seems to be the main plus for Bush.

But there's of course another side to this which makes me wonder what Bush was thinking - and it goes beyond simply putting the name "Vietnam" in the news.

In giving unprecedented approval to the regime that drove the U.S. out of Vietnam, Bush also gives added ammunition to everybody who wants to see a pullout from Iraq. After all, it signals that Vietnam has become a stable state capable of acting internationally on its own, after failing to become that while U.S. soldiers were around.

A more thoughtful president would wonder whether the same strategy would be more effective in Iraq. And even if that thought won't occur to Bush, this move at least ensures that it'll come to mind for more Americans than would have been the case otherwise.

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