Expanding the "war" in order to end it: What Cambodia & Iran have in common

(Photos are of Nixon's Cambodia policy and Bush's policy in Iraq)

Did you know that Richard M. Nixon was elected to the US presidency in 1968 on a platform that claimed he would end the war on Vietnam? It's true. And what did Nixon do once he was safely elected? He broke his promise, escalated the war on Vietnam and then went on to bomb Cambodia! "Why did you bomb Cambodia?" the press asked Mr. Nixon.

"I bombed Cambodia in order to end the war in Vietnam," Nixon replied. And did bombing Cambodia end the war on Vietnam? Absolutely! The total outrage engendered throughout Southeast Asia by Nixon's merciless killing of approximately 150,000 Cambodians drove the Viet Cong and the Khmer Rouge to fight even harder and the local civilian population to support them and to eventually hand America its greatest military defeat ever. Yep, Nixon's Cambodia bombing campaign DID end the Vietnam war.

According to Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan of the Yale Genocide Project, "The Cambodian bombing campaign had two unintended side effects that ultimately combined to produce the very domino effect that the Vietnam War was supposed to prevent. First, the bombing forced the Vietnamese Communists deeper and deeper into Cambodia, bringing them into greater contact with Khmer Rouge insurgents. Second, the bombs drove ordinary Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, a group that seemed initially to have slim prospects of revolutionary success."

Did you know that George W. Bush is now planning to do the exact same thing to Iran that Nixon did to Cambodia? Apparently Bush is now vowing to attack Iran in order to expand the war on Iraq in order to end it. "Because Iran is aiding and abetting our enemies in Iraq, we are justified in attacking Iran as a matter of self-defense."

Also, according to Fox News, former UN Ambassador and Bush administration insider John Bolton recently stated that, "the situation that our forces face in Iraq now is that they are being attacked, they are in danger from Iranian-lead, financed, trained and equipped terrorists." When asked if Bush would invade Iran before the end of his term, Bolton responded, "I think so, definitely."

We've definitely got some de-ja Voo happening here.

And will the results of Bush's plans to bomb Iran be the same as the results of Nixon's plans to bomb Cambodia? Do we really want to risk finding out?