What an irony! This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, the turning point of the Vietnam War and a campaign that has become largely forgotten except by military historians and those who came of age during that prolonged and agonizing conflict. As a completely unexpected marker of that anniversary, last month produced a kind of Tet in reverse. Instead of a huge military invasion, this Tet came in the unlikely form of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear programs. The early returns suggested a blow as devastating to those both in the United States and Iran in favor of a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities as Tet was to American support for Vietnam. But first a word on Tet.
Tet Mau Thanh in Vietnamese was a three pronged-attack that began on 30 January 1968, coinciding with the lunar New Year. The purpose was to deliver a massive blow throughout the South, largely with conventional forces of the People's Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) and the National Liberation Front (NLF), popularly called Vietcong. The result, the North Vietnamese hoped, would produce a popular revolt and the fall of Saigon that would in turn topple the government. Upwards of 350,000 North Vietnamese and perhaps 100,000 irregulars were thrown into battle.
By the time Tet ended, an estimated 80,000-100,000 PAVN and NLF were dead. North Vietnam had suffered a setback of major proportions. For complex reasons, however, the press perceived the offensive as a humiliating American defeat and public support for the war plummeted. Only years later, after journalist and former Marine Peter Braestrup published a painstakingly researched revisionist account of Tet, did the true winners and losers of the campaign become clear.
Because of Tet, the United States began its drawdown from South Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek "another term as your President," and much of the American public concluded the war was lost even though it would be another five years before all of our combat forces departed the country.
The Vietnam analogy has been applied to Iraq, not Iran. We are not at war with Iran and we need not be. So why is Tet relevant? For months, the war drums have been beating in Washington over Iran and its supposed nuclear ambitions. Speculation over a military attack against Iran has filled the media. And there were indications that some in Iran were baiting Washington into a strike to unite the Islamic world in a cold or a hot war against America that would destroy U.S. influence in the region.
As a result, an American military strike to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities was possible and some believed probable. Hence, last month's NIE, rather as Tet demolished Americans' support for Vietnam, seemingly blew a large hole in the case for a military action against Iran. The implication was clear. Why attack a non-existent program?
This latest NIE expressed "high confidence" that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program more than four years ago and that it would take at least 4-7 years before it had the capacity to build a real bomb, reversing key findings of the last NIE conducted in 2005. The President immediately responded that Iran was still a dangerous country.
As Tet was a surprise, so too was this NIE. Why it was released and for what reasons are important political questions with profound strategic implications. Was this the intelligence community doing its job by asserting its apolitical nature and independence? Did those in America who viewed a strike on Iran as reckless and even catastrophic drive it? Or was it the work of those in the administration who favored an attack and wanted to get this assessment out as quickly as possible to deflect its impact.
Tet was a complete military defeat for North Vietnam. Yet they still won. We will see what lasting impact the NIE has on those both in the United States and Iran who, for diametrically opposed reasons, believe an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is in their best interests.