Withdrawal in Stages

10 October 2007



Brown to Cut UK Troops in Iraq-Nam to 2,500

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that the UK will have only 2,500 troops in Iraq-Nam in the spring. This is a reduction from the current 5,500 and from the 4,500 expected by Christmas. What happens to the remaining 2,500 is not yet settled, but Mr. Brown has said that the Iraq-Namese will get control of the final province for which the UK had responsibility, Basra, within the next two months. That suggests the Tommies will be gone from Iraq-Nam by 2009. GI Joe must be envious.

The province of Basra is a strategically important one given that the city of Basra is Iraq-Nam’s only real port. The population is largely Shi’ite, and the place is a major ideological battleground for various strains of Shi’ite religious and political thought. One can readily and cogently argue that the faction that runs Basra will be the faction that decides Iraq-Nam’s future.

Without a doubt, the British and the Americans cannot influence which faction that is in the long run. As yesterday’s leader in The Guardian stated, “A ceasefire of forces loyal to the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, secured by the release from prison of a number of his top militiamen, has been followed by an agreement between the cleric and his main Shia rival, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. This is not a repeat of Northern Ireland, where talks followed the bombs and bullets largely because the Provisional IRA realised it had more to gain from a political path than it had from a military one. Two Shia militias have called a halt to their military campaign, and Sunni forces in Anbar province have agreed to change sides - for now. But the tap of violence can be as swiftly turned on again. Peace depends on what each group gains politically.”

Mr. Brown, though, is making domestic political calculations as well. Some of his junior MPs believe he lost his nerve over the week-end when he decided not to call a snap election. Constitutionally, he needn’t for a couple of years, but morally, a mandate from the electorate would help. Iraq-Nam looms large in this equation. The majority of the British people never supported the war, but the Labour and Tory parties decided to back the Bushevik’s policy. Voters remember little things like unnecessary wars.

Mr. Brown wants to go to the country as the man who ended the British participation in the occupation of Iraq-Nam. Nothing would distinguish him more from Tony Blair than undoing the former PM’s biggest mistake. He also knows that Mr. Bush is gone January 20, 2009 at noon Eastern time. As the lame duck president grows ever lamer, it will become safer to pull out the last 2,500. With the troops out in 2009, with a recovery from the credit crunch and potential recession of 2007-8, and with greater familiarity with the Gordon Brown label, there’s a much better chance that Mr. Brown will lead Labour to victory.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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