The United States of America has never lost a war. But the Democrats have. 

I know that sounds like a partisan statement. 

Perhaps it is. 

It also happens to be true. 

Let’s look at the three wars that America has supposedly lost: Vietnam, the Second Iraq War and Afghanistan.

Viet Nam.

In 1973, President Nixon negotiated an end to the conflict. The late political commentator, Bruce Herschensohn, who was a White House aide at the time, described the mood in Washington as jubilant.  “At the White House we called it ‘VV Day,’ ‘Victory in Vietnam Day.’ he recounted. 

The deal was straightforward. 

The US would withdraw. North Vietnam would stay on its side of the 17th parallel. South Vietnam on its side — just as North Korea and South Korea agreed to stay on their sides of the 38th parallel in the ceasefire President Eisenhower brokered between North and South Korea in 1953. 

If, however, the North broke the agreement the US would supply all the firepower the South needed to repel the invasion. 

Four months after Nixon resigned in 1974 following the Watergate scandal, the North invaded the South.  Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, begged the Congress, now dominated by Democrats, to come to the South’s aid: not boots on the ground, but arms, as America had promised. The Democrats not only refused, they mocked Ford’s request. Within weeks, the North Vietnamese took over the country. 

Congressional Democrats had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. 

The Second Iraq War.

We won the second Iraq War — twice. Within the first few weeks, Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Instead of wrapping up the operation and letting the Iraqis fashion their own government, President George W. Bush decided he wanted to remake the country in America’s image — that is, turn it into a representative democracy. It was a noble ambition: make Iraq a model for the rest of Middle East to emulate. Had it worked, it would have changed the region and the world for the better. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t work. 

Bush and his advisors underestimated the sectarian hatreds in the country. Soon a civil war broke out between Sunni Iraqis and Shia Iraqis. American soldiers were caught in the middle. 

US armed forces took terrible casualties as they tried to restore order and keep the elected transitional Iraqi government from collapsing. 

Bush suffered politically and the Democrats took over both houses of Congress in the 2006 midterm election. They pressured Bush to abandon Iraq. Some of the president’s own advisors agreed. But Bush refused. He thought it would send a terrible message to our allies —  that America was not a reliable partner. 

In 2007, in an act of great courage, Bush ordered more troops into the country. This came to be known as “The Surge.” With a new military strategy spearheaded by General David Petraeus, US soldiers regained control. Combat veteran and later Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth visited Iraq in 2008. He was astounded at the change. I was there at the same time as a CIA officer, and I can confirm his observations. In cities like Ramadi, once the locus of the sectarian fighting, order had been restored. The same was true in Baghdad. A brighter Iraqi future actually seemed possible — a second victory had been achieved. That’s the Iraq Bush left to the new President, Democrat Barack Obama. 

It didn’t take Obama long to throw it all away. Having run as an anti-war candidate, he pulled all American forces out of Iraq. Iran quickly moved in, essentially taking over the government. In the north of Iraq, the terror group ISIS took over a large portion of the country, brutally raping women and savagely murdering their opponents. The whole region seemed to be up for grabs. The order and stability Bush had established — gone. Once more defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory — by a Democrat in the White House. 

Afghanistan.

When Donald Trump left office in 2021, Afghanistan was relatively quiet, thanks to a contingent of just 2500 American soldiers.  American combat deaths had been reduced to zero. We had a magnificent, well-maintained military base at Bagram. The Taliban still operated, but mostly in the remote countryside. They had little power. This was evidenced by the fact that girls could go to school, and women could walk freely through the streets of Kabul. After a twenty-year American presence was the country a paragon of democracy? No. But was it a functioning nation? Yes. Could one feel optimistic about its future? Yes.  

Then that future went dark. What happened? 

Democrat Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in a disputed election.

In May of 2021, against the advice of his generals, the new president precipitously ordered all the troops out of Afghanistan, abandoning the Bagram Base and billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment in the process. 

Chaos ensued. 

During the evacuation, thirteen U.S. servicemembers were slaughtered in a suicide bombing attack. A revived Taliban seized control of the government and instantly turned the country back into the barbaric hell-hole that it is now. 

It’s common now to hear that the United States can’t win wars. The truth is that the United States has never lost a war. But the Democrats have. 

I’m Buck Sexton, author of Manufacturing Delusion, for Prager University.