ninme

The Times - Beyond Basra
Britain cannot be seen to ‘fail’ in southern Iraq

Armies that are perceived to be in damage-limitation, not winning, mode cannot impose their will. Their enemies harry them to call it a day; it is only a question of when. This has been the British predicament in Basra. The signal that the British were not going to stay the course went out soon after the invasion, when after a few months force levels were halved and then halved again. Under pressure to hand over and get out, the British recruited untrustworthy Iraqis en masse to the police and administration. Basrawis who had trusted the British to keep order ceased to do so and hell broke loose. …

The temptation will be to say that the remaining 5,000 at Basra airport are no more than a symbolic presence, and pull them out too. But southern Iraq cannot be left to sink or swim. It accounts for 70 per cent of Iraq’s oil reserves, 90 per cent of government revenue and through it run the coalition supply routes from Kuwait. The US will not thank Britain if its forces have to divert south from “surge” operations to fill the gap. What the British quaintly choose to call “reposturing” would be called running for the exit by extremists everywhere, including Afghanistan. It would be a “symbolic absence” of great potency. It would be failure. At President Bush’s side last month, Gordon Brown spoke of “duties to discharge and responsibilities to keep” in Iraq. He must now pronounce those same words at home.

So, I have heard as many pronouncements on the situation of Britain’s retreat/surrender/hand-over/quitting-the-evil-adventure-at-last as there are columnists in Britain, all presented exactly as fact. No, “it is obvious that this is the situation” setting forth an argument, no counter-arguments of “despite what certain newspapers would have one believe, this is clearly the situation” which at least acknowledges that there is a disagreement, just a bunch of people talking at what amounts to cross purposes and the listener, me, befuddled enough as it is, left thinking that everyone’s gone crazy because they’re certainly behaving that way.