Now, more than ever, Britain must stay in Iraq

22 August 2007

William Shawcross denounces those who say we must stand firm in Afghanistan but flee the country we liberated from Saddam Hussein. The US ‘surge’ is beginning to work, and Gordon Brown must grasp that the war against Islamism is indivisible

Any kind of unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would be seen by our principal ally, the United States, as little short of betrayal. General Keane said: ‘It’s really frustrating that while the US has the momentum in the north the Brits have let the south come apart. It would be absolutely the wrong time to withdraw. We need the Brits as an anchor in the south. Otherwise we will need to pull forces from the main effort, in the central region of Iraq, which is exactly what our enemy would want.’

But apart from our allies — just think what our enemies would make of British withdrawal. Bin Laden famously talked of people preferring the strong horse to the weak one. Al-Qa’eda’s brutally sophisticated propaganda machine would celebrate
it across the internet as a famous victory for the Islamist strong horse. The pictures of our last helicopters flying out (no doubt under fire), and the occupation and destruction of the ‘Crusader’ bases, would be exploited as recruiting tools across the world. Theperception of our ‘defeat’ in Iraq would make any victory in Afghanistan all the harder to achieve.

It’s always wise to read what the enemy says. Weeks before the 2003 invasion, bin Laden said that it was part of a Western plot, a Crusader campaign to annihilate Islam and establish a ‘Greater Israel’. That is still the Islamist lie. He has since declared that Iraq is now in the frontline of their war against the West.

A recent US National Intelligence Estimate stated that ‘al-Qa’eda in Iraq’ is the terror network’s ‘most visible and capable affiliate’. Al-Qa’eda is fighting so fiercely in Iraq because the American project jeopardises everything the group stands for: democracy does not belong in the region, bin Laden and his deputy al Zawahiri say, and only an
Islamic government based on sharia law is acceptable. We ignore the horror of this ambition at our peril.