The timing of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s surprise visit to Baghdad on May 22, before he flew to Washington to see President George Bush, was spot on. It was the kind of occasion he is extremely good at, and, no doubt, as usual he came across to his hosts as likeable, intelligent and well informed. I watched him on my TV screen speaking without notes alongside Nouri Al-Maliki, Iraq’s new prime minister, and the short clip suggested he had struck just the right note and said, neatly, what needed to be said.
Of course, the main purpose of his very brief visit was to draw attention to the fact that Iraq has a properly elected government that represents Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Blair was the first senior visitor to Baghdad after the government had been agreed to by the Parliament. After learning that Iraq, after all, did not have WMD — the removal of which was Britain’s reason for going to war — changing Iraq into a functioning democracy has been turned into the mission.
The visit was also to offer help and advice to the new government and, in particular, to discuss the one question that is of real concern to the British public — when will “our boys’ be able to come home?”
Blair, who had spent the previous night in Kuwait before flying in a Hercules to Baghdad and then on by helicopter to the heavily-fortified Green Zone, told his audience that the three years taken to establish a democracy had: “been longer and harder than any of us would have wanted it to be.”
In private, I suspect he has been saying much the same thing about the disastrous time it has taken since the elections for a four-year Parliament on Dec. 15 to form this government. The intervening months have witnessed growing signs of “ethnic-cleansing”, as in Bosnia some years ago, and what many see as a slow slide into a civil war. And when, at last, the government was announced two crucial posts remained to be filled, namely that of the defense secretary and the interior minister. The posts were due to be looked after by the prime minister, and two junior ministers, in the interim.
Blair went on to tell his audience that:
“There is now no excuse for people to carry on with terrorism and bloodshed.”
Speaking of the 7,500-strong British military contingent in southern Iraq, he pointed out in a good new phrase:
“It’s the violence that keeps us here. It’s the peace that will let us go.”
There does seem to be an unspoken difference between the British, who want to get out as soon as they decently can, and the Americans who, to the best of my knowledge, still intend to establish long-term strategic bases in Iraq to safeguard their two big interests in the Middle East — Israel and oil.
An unnamed “senior” diplomat told The Times recently that London is in denial over the predicament of British forces in Iraq and I share that view. He said:
“It is an utter disaster. It reminds me of Palestine in 1946. British troops are reduced to conducting force protection. The telegrams from Iraq made very depressing reading.”
In reality, British troops are mainly confined to their bases. 60 percent of their time is taken up with escorting vehicles and guard duties. Many of the police units they have trained have since been taken over by the heavily armed militias. For months the governor of Basra, Mohammed Al-Waili, refused to cooperate with them. Relations with the people of Basra are far worse than three years ago. Promised provisional elections may not even take place in 2006 leaving a political vacuum.
Blair is only too aware that his time in No. 10 Downing Street — he has promised to leave before the next general election — will have Iraq as its cornerstone, if he likes that or not. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has thus became an extremely important player as far as Blair is concerned. I cannot see the majority of British troops leaving Iraq before the Americans start pulling out on a big scale. Unfortunately British troops are seen increasingly as part of an unwelcome occupation force led by a staunchly pro-Israel United States.
The political bases of both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have been much weakened during 2006, and for both Iraq has been a huge part of their problems. I cannot see the United States and the United Kingdom coming up with major initiatives on Iraq; I can see both nations sinking deeper into the sands of Iraq. It seems clear it will fall to the next president of the United States to order finally the military withdrawal from Iraq.
