Friday - November 17, 2006

Will Britain Bail Out?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, pressure is mounting on Tony Blair to bail out of Iraq, leaving the US to pretty much go it alone. I would really like to hear from our British readers here what they think the general opinion is over there. I have a sad feeling that the stories are true and when Tony Blair steps down in May of next year things are going to take a sudden turn for the worst as far as support from our major ally in the war on terror.

That ought to fit in nicely with the Democrats’ stated policy here in the US to begin withdrawal of US troops from Iraq about the same time. If this all falls out like it seems to be heading, next summer will be a really bad time to be in Iraq. The undeniable truth is that if the Democrats in the US and the Liberals in Britain have their way we can expect full-blown civil war and (you heard it here first) invasion of Iraq by Iran. At which point things will start to go down the toilet real fast in the Muddled East ....

_{Bob Englehart - The Hartford Courant}

Britain Must Not Retreat From Iraq
- by Nile Gardiner
_{(HUMAN EVENTS) - Nov 16, 2006}

British Prime Minister Tony Blair gives evidence this week to the Iraq Study Group amid mounting calls for a withdrawal of British forces and sagging public support for the war. An early withdrawal of British forces would boost al-Qaeda, risk civil war in Iraq, and severely strain the Anglo-U.S. relationship, to the detriment of the war on terrorism and global security. While the Prime Minister is right to reject calls for a British withdrawal from Iraq, his decision to increase ties with Iran and Syria is a serious strategic error that would do no more than embolden these rogue regimes.

British support for a withdrawal from Iraq is mounting. In the latest Guardian/ICM poll, 61 percent of British voters supported the exit of British troops from Iraq by the end of the year, with 45 percent backing an immediate withdrawal. Just 30 percent of those surveyed favored maintaining a British military presence in Iraq beyond 2006. In a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph, a staggering 77 percent of Britons surveyed expressed “not much confidence” or “no confidence at all” in the British government’s handling of the war in Iraq.

_{British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits coalition forces at Zubayr, Iraq}

In addition to public disillusionment, Downing Street faces rising political opposition to the Prime Minister’s Iraq policy and increasingly vocal dissent from within Britain’s overstretched armed forces. The government narrowly prevailed in a recent vote in the House of Commons calling for an inquiry into Britain’s handling of the Iraq war that was proposed by the anti-war Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties and backed by the Conservative Party. And Sir Richard Dannatt, the new Chief of the General Staff of the British Army, sent shockwaves through the British political establishment in October, with a controversial and remarkably frank interview in which he stated that the presence of British troops was “exacerbating the security problems” in Iraq. Dannatt linked the Iraq war to “Islamist violence” in Britain, criticized pre-war planning, and expressed his hope that British troops would leave Iraq “soon.”

The Prime Minister is right to reject pressure for an immediate withdrawal. In a major speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the City of London on November 13, he presented a powerful defense of the British commitment to the Iraqi people. Blair also challenged the fashionable and increasingly pervasive anti-Americanism in Britain, describing it as “the surest route to the destruction of our national interest” and reminding his audience of the need “to keep our partnership with America strong.”

An early withdrawal of the 7,200 British forces from Iraq would be a huge mistake. A British pullout would shatter the international coalition, greatly weaken America’s position in the center and north of the country, strengthen the insurgency, embolden al-Qaeda, and allow Iran-backed militia groups to increase their influence in the Shia-dominated south. In addition to threatening Iraq’s future, a pullout would also damage the Anglo-U.S. alliance that has led the war on terrorism.

A British pullout from Iraq would lead to specific consequences:

• A Propaganda Victory for Al-Qaeda and its Allies: Al-Qaeda would portray a pullout as a victory. A pullout would embolden al-Qaeda’s terrorist network in Iraq and provide a massive boost to the insurgency. Al-Qaeda would certainly link any withdrawal to the July 7, 2005, London bombings, for which it has claimed responsibility, and claim that the attacks forced a change in British policy. This would set a dangerous precedent and greatly increase the likelihood of future terrorist atrocities on European soil.


• Civil War, Ethnic Cleansing, and a Humanitarian Crisis: The withdrawal of British and other Western forces would pave the way for a civil war between Sunni and Shia groups, with bloodshed on a far greater scale than witnessed so far. Hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people could be displaced by acts of ethnic cleansing, leading to a huge humanitarian crisis.


• The Boosting of Iranian Influence. Iran would be a geostrategic beneficiary of any British pullout from Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, where it already wields great political influence. A British withdrawal from Basra and its southern bases would create a power vacuum that dozens of Iranian-backed militia groups are ready to exploit—among them, Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigades, and the Mujahidin for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.


• A Strained Special Relationship. A unilateral withdrawal by Britain would have damaging implications for the future of the Anglo-U.S. special relationship, the most powerful military and political alliance in modern history. It would weaken the ties that bind the two nations and create a gulf in trust, greatly reducing the impetus for future joint U.S.-British operations. Anglo-American leadership has been the engine of the global war on terror, and a division between the two allies would undermine the West’s ability to combat al-Qaeda and state sponsors of terror.


• The Undermining of British Power. Retreat is not a word that figures prominently in British military vocabulary, and Britain has an unrivalled record of military success over the past 300 years. An early British withdrawal, even for political and strategic, rather than military, reasons, would prove damaging to Britain’s prestige and standing and force a negative revaluation of Britain’s role in the world. It would echo the Suez crisis of 1956, which split America from Britain and undermined British confidence for a generation. A withdrawal would dramatically weaken Britain’s resurgence as a world power and reduce its assertiveness on the international stage.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 11/17/2006 at 10:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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