Unless you’ve been hiding behind the giant NBC logo shaped rock that is the Olympics for the past few days you’ve probably noticed that we have a splendid little war (or to be more precise a “peacekeeping conflict”) on our hands in Georgia. In case you have been hiding under that rock, on the seventh of August Georgian forces invaded the seperatist region of South Ossetia, breaking an hours-old ceasefire. The next day Russia invaded Georgia to support its quasi-client quasi-state, and chaos ensued.

Then on the 10th of August the Georgians, having realized that they tried to bite off more than they could chew declared a ceasefire and ordered their troops to leave South Ossetia. However, Russia was in no mood for a ceasefire and continued to merrily tear its way through Georgian territory, today moving into Georgia from Abzhakia the other breakaway province under Russian protection. Georgia meanwhile is spiraling into chaos, having declared a state of emergency and recalled its 2000 man deployment in Iraq, the third largest in the country after the US and Britain.

To me with my love for historical allusions this entire situation seems like Korea redux, except this time with the places switched. Just like in Korea Georgia launched a surprise offensive in the hopes of reuniting a split nation. Just like in Korea after a few early successes the aggressor found itself pitted against an intervening superpower that decisively turned the tide of the war, and now just like in Korea the attacker finds itself on the ropes and in retreat.

So it falls on the United States to play its part in this little historical reenactment – that of China. Just as Mao warned United Nations forces not to cross the 38th Parallel, so we should warn the Russians to stop their incursions into Georgia, while allowing them to maintain control over Abzhakia and South Ossetia, and be ready to back up our warnings with force if need be.

Now I’ll be the first to point out that the Georgian government is not perfect; far from it in fact. As I said before, the Georgians were the aggressors in this situation, and should take the blame for that. Furthermore, having supported the principles of self-determination by recognizing Kosovo, the United States cannot now violate those principles by forcibly reuniting Georgia. However, Georgia is also an outpost of democracy in an increasingly authoritarian part of the world. True it is not exactly a “model democracy”, but first-time democracies rarely are, and even a halfway democracy is better than Putin’s (and it is still very much Putin’s) one-party state.

Then of course there is the threat that by intervening in Georgia we may very well cause World War 3, as the Russians will imediately turn their nuclear arsenal on us, blindly destroying the world. Luckily, all parties involved are much smarter than that. Putin and his cohorts, who mastered the art of self-preservation and enrichment in the post-Soviet years would not rush blindly into conflict with a far-superior US and NATO. We can help moderate things by starting small. We should declare an American/NATO guarantee of Georgian (but not Abzhakian or South Ossetian) airspace, and back it up by sending planes into that airspace, and shooting down Russian planes if need be. From there we can escalate to providing air support for Georgian attacks on Russian forces (once again, only within true Georgia), until the Russians finally realize that we are willing to defend Georgia.

We can do that, or we can sit back and watch as the rest of the world sees the West abandon yet another fledgling democracy to the forces of authoritarianism, as its leaders kowtow (in the historical sense of the world) to another one-party state. Hopefully the President, and his NATO “allies” will show that they have some semblance of a spine left, and do the right thing.

Many Democrats love to compare Iraq to Vietnam, usually with the words “disaster” and “quagmire” thrown in. Of course that kind of rhetoric has been toned down a bit as things start getting better, but in a way that improvement makes Iraq resemble Vietnam even more.

In Vietnam by the middle of 1967 things were getting to the point where it was possible for the public to imagine an end to the war, to see the light at the end of the tunnel. A large part of this was due to a new strategy of “attrition” pioneered by a General William Wesmoreland who became a celebrity of sorts, completely identified with the war and its conduct. Sound familiar? It should. Replace “attrition” with “surge” and Westmoreland with Petraeus, and you have a perfect description of the current state affairs in Iraq. The scary part is what came next.

Just as things were looking up for American forces in Vietnam the Vietcong launched the Tet offensive, a suprise attack launched during the ceasefire that traditionally accompanied the Vietnamese holiday of Tet. In the runup to the attack Westmoreland had completely denied the capability of the Vietcong to launch such an offensive, and had insisted that the war was more or less won.

Militarily and strategically Westmoreland was right. The Tet offensive was a grand offensive gamble by the Vietkong, and like most such gambles it ended in military failure. Vietkong units were annihilated piecemeal and the offensive failed completely in its mission of conquering the South. However, while a military defeat the Offensive was a public relations masterstroke. The revelation that Westmoreland’s confident predictions and boasts were so much hot air completely destroyed public confidence in the government and its waging of the war.

The result was that when Westmoreland requested more troops to help push the offensive his request was denied after much debate within the White House staff over the poltitical repercussions such a move would have. That cat was already out of the bag – shortly after, and as a direct result of the Tet Offensive Johnson announced that he would not seek his party’s nomination for President. In 1968 Nixon ran for, and won the Presidency with a slogan of securing “peace with honor”, and the rest is history – Nixon was forced to fight an extended retreat that cost thousands of American lives, and resulted in South Vietnam being overrun right after the last American troops left.

Iraq hasn’t gotten to that point… yet. One bright spot is that chastened by the memory of “Mission Accomplished” and “Bring them on” the Administration and military are much more cautious about the situation than Westmoreland was. However, much like in the fateful days before Tet today’s public has invested a lot in Petraeus and the surge, and should things turn sour even slightly the resulting shift in public opinion would likely be massive.

The danger here is real. Islamist terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda clearly have no problems with manipulating the internal politics of Western nations – remember the Madrid train bombings, and as devoted students of insurgency they cannot have missed the lesson of Tet. Thankfully Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been dealt a severe blow as a result of the surge and the various tribal “awakening councils”, but they are far from the only threat in the region. We currently have an uneasy truce with the Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, which has contributed to the recent progress, but remember that the Tet Offensive too was launched in violation of a truce.

In the end the lesson is this: Should the attack come (and hopefully this entire post will be completely wrong and it won’t) we must stand our ground in Iraq, and not allow ourselves to be manipulated by our enemies. Especially with November just around the corner such short-term hysteria can have grave consequences, and this must not happen. Starting this war might have been a mistake, but it is our job to ensure that the way we finish it is not.