COMMENT British
leave Basra to its own
devices By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - When British Prime Minister
Tony Blair ordered 46,000 troops to Iraq in 2003
(one-third of the army's land forces) many
wondered whether these soldiers even knew where
they were heading.
Operation Telic, as
it was called, was the largest operation of
the British Army since World War II, and
one particular phrase from that era came to mind,
famously said by British prime minister Winston
Churchill: "[W]e shall defend our island, whatever
the
cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches, we
shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight
in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight
in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Churchill had every reason not
to surrender. He was fighting for Great Britain.
The men and women who went to Iraq in 2003 - and
who will start coming back in May - were not
fighting for Britain. They were fighting for the
United States, and it was never their war to start
with.
Blair has announced that British
troops in Iraq will be reduced to 5,500 before
this summer and all of them, probably, will be out
by late 2008. There are currently 7,100 in the
country, slashed from 9,000 in 2004 and 46,000 in
2003.
Almost in a domino effect, Denmark
declared that it also will bring its 460 troops
back home by August. Lithuania will do the same
for its 53 troops and South Korea, which currently
has 2,300 soldiers in Irbil, is expected bring
half of them back by April and the remainder by
December.
The US insists this does not
mean a change of strategy, nor does it spell the
failure of the international coalition in Iraq,
claiming that eventual withdrawal is what the West
has had in mind since 2003. After a phone
conversation between Blair and President George W
Bush, the British withdrawal was described as "a
sign of success" by US National Security Council
spokesman Gordon Johndroe. A closer look, however,
suggests otherwise. With Spain and Italy already
having walked out on Iraq, the remaining members
of the coalition will be Poland with 900 troops,
Austria and Georgia with 800, and Romania with
600. Australia has a 520-strong battle group in
southern Iraq.
An al-Qaeda-linked website
gloated that Blair's exodus meant the "beginning
of the disintegration of the crusader coalition".
The US, though, plans to send an
additional 21,500 troops to Iraq to reinforce the
Baghdad security plan of its ally, Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki.
Britain's remaining
troops, however, will not be used to help patrol
or protect Baghdad, as when they came to the aid
of the Americans in Fallujah in October 2004. They
will remain in the southern districts of Basra,
the second-largest city in Iraq with more than 2.5
million inhabitants, because the Iraqi capital,
according to Blair, is witnessing "an orgy of
terrorism".
Blair commented on his
decision, "What all of this means is not that
Basra is how we want it to be. But it does mean
that the next chapter in Basra's history can be
written by the Iraqis."
Since 2003, British troops have helped reopen
schools, equip hospitals, improve waterworks and
secure oil platforms. Their job was made easier
by the relatively calm situation
in Shi'ite-dominated Basra, compared to Baghdad and the restive
"Sunni triangle".
Blair summed up the
south as having "no Sunni insurgency, no al-Qaeda
base, little Sunni or Shi'ite violence". Blair
overlooked that in 2006 Basra did face a lot of
violence, greatly endangering the 7th Armored
Brigade based there.
Indeed, Basra has
a troublesome past. Two uprisings were
launched against Saddam Hussein from it, in 1991 and
1999. Since entering the city on April 6, 2003,
British troops have done little to eradicate
sectarian militias, except sporadic operations such
as the raid on a police station last December to
free 70 people taken hostage by Shi'ite militias.
As of January, 130 British troops had
been killed in Iraq. This compares with 16 killed
in the Gulf War of 1991. They can no longer travel
on foot for fear of being ambushed, and have to use
helicopter taxis.
The Basra that
Blair's troops leave behind has been overtaken
by loyalists of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose
whereabouts are currently unclear. Some reports
claim that he fled to Iran in advance of the
Baghdad security operation.
The people of Basra
followed him en masse when he began his rebellion
against the US in 2004. His pictures plaster the
walls and monuments of Basra, showing how powerful
he really is, and the city has been transformed
into a mini-theocracy. Alcohol is banned and
veiling for women is becoming a must; those who
refuse are arrested or beaten by religious
militias who act as a moral police squad.
The British have been unable to eradicate
these watchdogs, or the militias. Merchants who
sell alcohol have been beaten by fundamentalists
and some have even been executed.
Most
Sunnis have left Basra, fearing for their lives as
the British have been unable to protect them. A
report last year by the US Department of State on
Basra said, "Smuggling and criminal activity
[continue] unabated. Intimidation attacks and
assassination are common. Unemployment is high and
economic development is hindered by weak
government."
History will judge the British
adventure in Iraq - undertaken to please the United
States in its "war on terror" - as a resounding
failure. It did nothing for Great Britain. And 130
soldiers died for a battle that did not concern
them. They died on the beaches, the landing
grounds, the fields, the streets and the hills of
a faraway land named Iraq, and a distant friend
called George W Bush.
Sami
Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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