I think the single most important U.S. battle of World War II was not D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge, but the Battle of the Kasserine Pass in North Africa in February 1943. It was the war’s first major encounter between U.S. and German forces, and it was a shocker. The U.S. forces held out, through superior numbers (and British reinforcements), but the battle showed that the Germans were more disciplined, more experienced, tougher, better-equipped, better-trained, and better-led than the Americans.

Virtually nothing had gone according to plan. It seemed suicidal to send this U.S. army to face the German army in Europe. We weren’t good enough.

The thing that made the Battle of the Kasserine Pass so important was what happened next. U.S. leadership acknowledged the problems and went back to the drawing board. Ineffective officers were replaced. Coordination of forces was improved. Tactics changed. Battlefield commanders were given greater authority to deal with rapidly-changing situations on the ground. Soldiers griped as they were drilled, and drilled, and drilled and drilled, but the U.S. Army that landed in Europe on D-Day was a far more formidable force than the one that faced the Germans at the Kasserine Pass. Without that early setback, and the corrective measures taken as a result, we might not have been good enough to win the war.

Imagine, if you will, that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld had been in charge then. Would they have made the necessary changes, or would they have insisted on the policy they follow in Iraq: repeat the things that fail until they succeed?

The Washington Post says we’ve forgotten the lessons of Vietnam:

[T]here is … strong evidence, based on a review of thousands of military documents and hundreds of interviews with military personnel, that the U.S. approach to pacifying Iraq in the months after the collapse of Hussein helped spur the insurgency and made it bigger and stronger than it might have been.

…

On May 16, 2003, L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run occupation agency, had issued his first order, “De-Baathification of Iraq Society.” The CIA station chief in Baghdad had argued vehemently against the radical move, contending: “By nightfall, you’ll have driven 30,000 to 50,000 Baathists underground. And in six months, you’ll really regret this.”

He was proved correct, as Bremer’s order, along with a second that dissolved the Iraqi military and national police, created a new class of disenfranchised, threatened leaders.

…

“When you’re facing a counterinsurgency war, if you get the strategy right, you can get the tactics wrong, and eventually you’ll get the tactics right,” said retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a veteran of Special Forces in the Vietnam War. “If you get the strategy wrong and the tactics right at the start, you can refine the tactics forever, but you still lose the war. That’s basically what we did in Vietnam.”

…

[R]etired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, an expert in small wars, was sent to Baghdad by the Pentagon to advise on how to better put down the emerging insurgency. He met with Bremer in early July. “Mr. Ambassador, here are some programs that worked in Vietnam,” Anderson said.

It was the wrong word to put in front of Bremer. “Vietnam?” Bremer exploded, according to Anderson. “Vietnam! I don’t want to talk about Vietnam. This is not Vietnam. This is Iraq!”

Bremer got a medal from George W. Bush.

George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Is there a special circle in Hell — some special kind of condemnation — for those who remember the past, but deliberately choose to ignore it?