McCain on Basra
James Forsyth 6:14pm
Talking about the situation in Basra today, John McCain makes the point that the problems in the city reflect not on the current strategy in Iraq but on the mistaken initial strategy: “This goes back to when we didn’t have enough boots on the ground, after the initial military success,’’ he said. “Iranian clerics moved into the region, Iranian influence moved into southern Iraq, and we basically, and the British, did not do a great deal to prevent them. These are the penalties we continue to pay for the very bad mishandling of the war for nearly four years while they became solidly entrenched.”
It is hard not to think that the problems in Basra have been exacerbated by the fact that the British government has long been preoccupied with planning a withdrawal strategy rather than thinking about how to fix the problem.
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TGF UKIP
March 31st, 2008 7:55pmAn officer corps complacent and over-confident in its counter insurgency reputation that persisted for too long in trying to treat Basra as Belfast. A Government unable to resist pressure from its own left wing, the LibDems and (disgracefully) from the Tories for premature troop withdrawals and the same Government (and disgracefully again its Opposition) unwilling to fund adequately manned and resourced Armed Forces. Basra is a right British mess and I hope some prominent US politician breaks with diplomatic convention and calls it exactly that. Going to be even more fun watching all the bleating when the US Army sorts it out.
Max Kaye
March 31st, 2008 9:18pmWe, British, are totally at fault. Our Weasel government talks big but shows the political spine of an earthworm, while our troops are first asked to do six impossible things before breakfast, and then reduced in numbers so as to be totally ineffective.
Our Royal Navy, meanwhile, is still a laughing stock. The Iranians still haven't stopped being giggling at the pictures of our ungainly 'sailors' happily donned polyester suits (and a scarf for lady). We may have chosen to forget that pathetic saga - the Iranians and their allies certainly haven't.
Sad.
Ray
April 1st, 2008 7:43amOf course, it's just possible that the reason Basra is in such a mess is because neither the Americans or ourselves should have charged into Iraq in the first place!
Dirk Blade
April 1st, 2008 10:29amThe situation in Basra is a national disgrace. The US armed forces have pulled off a stunning cultural transformation in the past five years, and are now vastly superior to the British in COIN, conceptually and practically. The UK's cheapo, just-enough, just-in-time mentality has corrupted our senior military, and has led us to shoe-horn the situation in Basra into our Belfast/Bosnia mindset, because that's all we *can* do.
The traditional UK line on US 'heavy-handedness' was 'if you've got a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.' Well, the British armed forces is a travel nail set, so every problem looks like a manicure: polish, superficial strength, and no lasting protection.
Ted Tedford
April 1st, 2008 11:28amTGF: Once the Basra debacle is retrieved by the US and ISF, I suspect that the British leaders will say of our precipitate 'we took the initiative by giving Mr Maliki the opportunity to step up.'