Reading George Will’s back-to-back op-eds last week, “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan” and “One Way or Another, Leaving Iraq,” reminds me of Walter Cronkite telling the American people in 1968 that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Will’s observations about Iraq and Afghanistan, like Cronkite’s about Vietnam, make sense--if you ignore the consequences.

On Afghanistan, Will says, “U.S. strategy--protecting the population--is increasingly troop-intensive while Americans are increasingly impatient about "deteriorating" (says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) conditions. The war already is nearly 50 percent longer than the combined U.S. involvements in two world wars, and NATO assistance is reluctant and often risible. . . Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.”

“America,” Will believes, “should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.”

Apparently unable to find an American to cite, Will looks to Europeans for military wisdom. "Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor . . . is squandered."

On Iraq, Will argues that “After almost 6 1/2 years, and 4,327 American dead and 31,483 wounded, with a war spiraling downward in Afghanistan, it would be indefensible for the U.S. military--overextended and in need of materiel repair and mental recuperation--to loiter in Iraq to improve the instincts of corrupt elites. If there is a worse use of the U.S. military than ‘nation-building,’ it is adult supervision and behavior modification of other peoples' politicians.” We’re committed to pulling all our troops out in 2011, so why not leave now?

Will’s admonitions won’t likely have the historic impact the venerable Walter Cronkite’s had. Today, a plethora of voices compete for the public’s attention. Even talented and respected people like Will can’t sway opinion like Cronkite once could. Nevertheless, Will makes powerful arguments very similar to Cronkite’s.

Cronkite’s closing comment in his February 27, 1968, CBS Evening News broadcast, made shortly after he returned from a visit to Vietnam in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, had a major impact on US public opinion. “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could (emphasis added).”

Will implicitly makes the same case. We’re an honorable people who lived up to our pledge to defend democracy, and did the best we could, but now it’s time to go. Like Cronkite, however, Will ignores the inevitable consequences.

Whatever you believe about the Vietnam War, the reality is this. America’s involvement in Vietnam was based on good intentions. It was, however, fought with the wrong strategy, incrementally escalating the use of force, hoping to modify Hanoi’s behavior. The war was not unwinnable as the now conventional wisdom would lead us to believe. But hope is not a strategy, and the object of war should be to prevent enemy behavior, not influence it. You can’t win any war if you make big mistakes. We made far too many big mistakes in Vietnam. As if we hadn’t learned the lessons of Vietnam well enough, we repeated some of those mistakes in Iraq before General David Petraeus took command.

Following the US withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1975, 3.5 million people in Vietnam and Cambodia were slaughtered--something the anti-war left in America little noticed or cared about. The infamous domino theory never materialized, but we don’t know what would have happened had we not forced communism to concentrate its efforts in Vietnam all those years.

In the hindsight of history it’s difficult to argue that we wouldn’t have been better off had we not gotten involved in French Indochina in the first place. But we did, and that gave us an obligation to ourselves, our allies, and the Vietnamese people to succeed.

The consequences of abandoning Iraq and Afghanistan would be far worse than those of abandoning South Vietnam. As historian and foreign policy commentator Robert Kagan points out in his letter to the editor of the Washington Post, “Will’s Double Surrender Policy,” “It's hard to imagine a more disastrous blow to vital American security interests than the double surrender George Will has proposed this week. To withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously would be to abandon American interests and allies in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East. The consequences of such a retreat would be to shift the balance of influence in the region decidedly away from pro-U.S. forces and in the direction of the most radical forces in Tehran, as well as toward al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban, to name just the most prominent beneficiaries. Longtime allies of the United States would either have to accommodate these radical forces and fall under their sway, or take matters into their own hands. What Will is proposing would constitute the largest strategic setback in American history.”

The dilemma we face in Afghanistan and Iraq is that both Will’s and Kagan’s arguments have merit; and we don’t want to repeat another mistake we made during the Vietnam War--polarization of the political debate. If we are to avoid a strategic set back, we have to stop looking at our watches with one eye on the exit door and do what is necessary to win. And that means employing all the political, economic, and military tools at our disposal. We must give General Stanley McChrystal an opportunity to implement a new strategy and give him the resources he requires to carry it out. It’s in America’s best interest to give him no less an opportunity than we gave General Petraeus in Iraq.

The Iraq and Afghanistan governments have their problems. Young democracies are messy things, and Iraq and Afghanistan are difficult places to govern. We will have little influence over the Afghanistan or Iraq governments, however, if we remove our forces prematurely. We have considerable leverage with both governments, we must use it skillfully.

Finally, the road ahead is a long and difficult one. It will take perseverance, vision, and great leadership to achieve goals and objectives that serve America’s, our allies’, and the Iraqi and Afghani peoples’ best interests. If we abdicate our responsibility--the responsibility as the World’s preeminent democracy to finish what we started and bring peace and stability to the region--America will become just another second-rate power that’s lost control of its destiny. In that case, Will's citation of General Charles de Gaulle will have been prophetic.