British Basra Withdrawal: You Never Know Unless You Go

By Liam Bailey*

September third saw the hand over of Basra Palace from British to Iraqi control. The 550 British troops previously stationed there have gone to join the last remaining 5000 British troops in the airport base on the city's outskirts. The handover brought mixed responses from Iraqis and from the press.

Gordon Brown insisted that the move was planned as part of the British withdrawal strategy and was not a defeat, stating that in an over-watch role the troops could re-intervene on the request of the Iraqis and promised we would still: "discharge our duties to the Iraqi people and the international community". Most press reports however draw attention to the lack of security, gang-warfare and high militia presence in the city, calling the withdrawal a defeat.

One headline in the Guardian: British leave with the job not done. And I think that about sums it up. The British Labour government's priority is to bring the troops home as quickly as possible, with an election coming up and the lack of popularity in Britain for the war and our troops continued presence in it. Not that I'm knocking it.

As I have always believed, teamed with (Islam's enemy no.1) the U.S., Britain was never going to bring security to the south -- just as the same is true for the U.S. in the north. In fact I have always thought (and 69% of Iraqis think) they are causing as much violence as they are quelling. That is not surprising given the backdrop to the war: the build up of years of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world, Bush Snr's lying to the Shiites and Kurds causing thousands of their deaths in 1991, the hollow precursor for the war and heavyweight belief that it was all for the oil.

Coalition atrocities that have since heightened resentment and hatred for the occupiers, combined with constant threats to Iran that have backed-up the cynicism of a war on Muslims, and the fact that almost every aspect of Iraqi life has gotten worse under the occupation have continually worsened and intensified the insurgency. All the above cut the British troop's work out for them, and that's before we even get onto the sectarian violence caused by Saddam favoring the Sunnis and oppressing the Shiites and Kurds -- but also kept a lid on by his fierce rule.

Sectarian violence has been worsened by outside influences and actors. It is widely thought that the Arab states, like Saudi Arabia are supporting Sunni groups, and according to official U.S. sources Iran is supporting and arming Shia militias.

The Shia militias are predominant in the British controlled south, where Iran has direct border access, meaning if they are arming and funding militias it is easier than it is for the Arab states to support the Sunni groups. To make matters worse Iran has the added motive of the ever-present danger of a U.S. attack, making Iran determined to make the U.S.' life difficult in Iraq. Unfortunately Britain suffers first and worst from any of Iran's pre-emptive defense measures.

So, having said all that, the fact that British troops have been able to hand-over power to the Iraqi forces in all but one of the southern provinces they controlled without any severe consequences says a lot about the abilities and strengths of the British army.

It also says that the MoD has realized the point I have made in this article: British troops can only maintain a certain level of security; the attacks levelled at them prevent them from bringing total security and peace. Therefore, when they have trained the Iraqi police and army in that province sufficiently it is right for them to hand-over control. After all, we will never know if they can do it unless we let them try.

I'll finish by saying that I don't know enough about the situation in the south -- figures, polls, etc -- to really say whether it is a defeat or not. But pulling out to a safe distance, removing a target that creates its share of violence, avoiding the loss of anymore British troops while continuing to train Iraqi forces, monitor the situation and be on-call if needed, sounds like the best solution all round. As the saying goes: you'll never know unless you go.

The World After Bush Part I: Iraq

By Liam Bailey

I said in my last article that the U.S. arms sale to the gulf is a possible sign that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq might be closer than Bush wants to admit. With all my conviction I say: there will be no U.S. victory in Iraq and eventually they will have to pullout, if not before Bush leaves office then sometime soon after.

When reading an article about the continued violence in Somalia with my last article still fresh in my mind, I asked myself the question, where will the world be after the Bush administration? Further, will things calm down, or have the Neocons caused so much friction and meddled so much that the explosion of violence in so many places around the world will continue to worsen?

I will attempt to answer my questions in a series of articles, and through the course will also inadvertently show why electing the son of a U.S. President, as President is perhaps a mistake, that should not be repeated.

In most of the worlds current conflict zones the U.S. has had some involvement, but never has their involvement been as catastrophic as under (the infantile megalomaniac) President Bush Jnr.

Part I: Iraq

In Iraq for decades the U.S. has made mistake after mistake, funding, arming and otherwise cosying up to the maniac Saddam Hussein throughout the 80's and early 90's -- under the same policy that the U.S. follows time after time, always to the world's detriment: my enemy's enemy is my friend. Bush Jnr's predecessors learned from their mistakes when Saddam invaded Kuwait late 1990, therein doing the very thing his U.S. funding was supposed to stop Iran (their common enemy), doing: threatening the vital oil supplies of the Middle East.

Bush Snr was in charge when the U.S. teamed up with the U.N. to go and drive Saddam's forces back out of Kuwait. In doing so he decided to start uprisings in Iraq's oppressed Shiite and Kurdish communities, in television addresses promising their uprisings would receive U.S. support to topple Saddam. Help never came, Saddam's forces fled Kuwait and crushed the revolts -- thousands were killed in reprisals.

The reason Bush Snr didn't send forces on into Iraq is likely the same reason that the current occupation is a disaster: Saddam's oppression keeping the lid on a sectarian powder keg.

Though I personally believe if Bush Snr had ordered U.S. troops to chase Saddam's fleeing forces into Iraq and finish the job -- even a U.S. force alone -- chasing Saddam's men into the Shiite uprising and a war on two fronts, with the Kurdish uprising causing a third front, would have made for an easy victory.

An easy victory unlike that of the 2003 war, because the Shiite's and Kurds wouldn't have hated and mistrusted the U.S. for the thousands killed when they revolted on Bush Snr's word. That also being the reason why 2003's battle for hearts and minds was lost before it begun.

Bush Jnr went ahead and invaded Iraq either because he wanted to prove he had more bottle than his daddy and thought like many sons do, that anything their dad can do they can do better. Or he knew Iraq would turn out like it has but decided to go in for their oil anyway. I'll let you decide.

Either way, the tyrant successfully toppled in the U.S. invasion has been replaced with hundreds of tyrants -- each as maniacal and vindictive but with nobody at all to answer to. At least with Saddam we could impose sanctions and threaten to invade. Now we've invaded, what is left to do about the sectarian death squads.

Few deny that the forces in Iraq are doing very little to stop the violence, in fact some say they are making it worse, but what is the alternative...

A U.S. withdrawal will only see the sectarian violence worsen. Iraq will descend into a civil war field, fuelled by the continuing proxy war already being fought between the Arab states and Iran using their sectarian soldiers in Iraq. The latter is another war that will worsen after a U.S. withdrawal, and one that won't be helped by the billions of dollars worth of arms being sold to the Arabs -- by guess who, the Bush administration.

So, whether the Iraq withdrawal happens before Bush leaves office or after, there is absolutely no chance that the situation in Iraq will calm down after the Bush administration leaves office and the U.S. pulls out of Iraq.

Part II will look at what is likely to happen in Somalia after the Bush administration leaves office, will the funding of the Ethiopian occupation force continue? Will U.S contractors still be at large there?