For all the self-congratulation at yesterday’s ceremony in Basra marking the formal end to the six-year combat role of British forces in Iraq, the verdict of one senior US officer this week has been that the British actually suffered a defeat.
In the early days of their occupation, British commanders were proud their soldiers were patrolling the streets in their berets and without body armor, giving sweets to children and chatting through interpreters to locals. The implication was that the US patrol method, using helmeted and Keflar-protected troops in heavily armored vehicles was not the right way to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis.
In the end neither the softly-softly British approach nor the US mailed fist worked out. With the unstoppable rise of the local Shiite militias, the British became besieged in one of Saddam’s old Basra palaces and completely lost control of the city. They were finally forced to retreat to the airport eight miles outside the city, where they could more easily protect their perimeter. Basra thereafter remained a lawless town in the grip of the militias until last year, Iraqi troops and police, backed by US forces, re-seized control in the “Charge of the Knights” operation.
The problem for both the US and British occupation forces was that their political masters Bush and Blair became victims of their own lies, which they had used to justify the invasion. Not only was Saddam’s regime supposed to have weapons of mass destruction which could be deployed in short order, but Iraqis were supposed to be longing for rescue from the dictatorship in which they lived. Given that Basra and the south of the country were predominantly Shiite areas, and Shiites had been regular victims of Saddam’s Sunni-dominated regime, it is hardly surprising that initially there was a welcome for British soldiers. But that welcome quickly turned to anger when, due to a complete lack of serious planning from Washington and London, the occupiers proved incapable of delivering reconstruction, not least of reliable power and safe drinking water.
George W. Bush simply did not understand the monumental task he had set himself and the British clearly imagined that as a former colonial occupier, they could muddle through as they always do. This criminal lack of thought as to how Iraqi infrastructure could be restored as quickly as possible and security and government passed back rapidly to Iraqis, was what boosted the insurgency of both Sunnis and Shiites.
Now the British are pulling out the last 4,000 of their combat troops, leaving just 400 specialists to carry on training Iraqi police and army units. The Americans have taken over their occupation in the south but they too are due to pull out of urban areas and regroup in their bases within the coming two months, before quitting the country completely by 2011.
The question now is whether Washington and London are repeating the same mistakes in Afghanistan, where too much reliance on military might has alienated moderate Afghans and actually boosted the Taleban.
China can’t have it both ways
Excerpts from a recent editorial in New York Times:
The Chinese government issued two statements last week. Both were only briefly, and separately, noted in the press. They make for a curious contrast.
In one, China denounced Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso for making an offering to the Yasukuni shrine. This is the shrine that honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 top war criminals from World War II, when Japan committed terrible atrocities in China.
China was furious when the then-prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, visited Yasukuni in 2005, and the next two prime ministers stayed clear. But Aso, a pugnacious nationalist, revived the controversy on Tuesday by offering the Shinto shrine a potted plant. Aso’s spokesmen insisted that this was not the same as a visit, and in any case would not affect his scheduled visit to China next week.
China was furious, telling the Japanese that “the question of history is highly sensitive.”
In the other statement, China demanded that the United States cancel a visit by the Dalai Lama (he arrived on Friday for a two-week tour). The Buddhist religious leader, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who is respected around the world, says he is seeking only autonomy for his homeland, Tibet. China vilifies him as a separatist and regularly lambastes countries and leaders who receive him.
“We oppose the Dalai Lama going to any country to engage in splittist activities under any pretext,” said Jiang Yu, the same Foreign Ministry spokeswoman who had earlier found history to be so sensitive.
Aso’s offering to Yasukuni was blatantly provocative and offensive, even if all he offered was a potted sakaki evergreen, and his explanation — that he was just expressing “appreciation and respect” to Japanese who gave their all — was disingenuous. We understand China’s frustration. But it only makes Beijing’s repression of Tibet and its attacks on the Dalai Lama all the more hypocritical.
