To abandon Iraq would be to court disaster

Wednesday, 25th October 2006

There are those who claim we could make a deal with Iran and its client Syria in a compromise settlement of Iraq’s problems. It’s hard to envisage. Both governments have done everything possible to destroy the new Iraq. The Syrian government has enabled the Damascus Baathist mafia to smuggle thousands of suicide bombers into Iraq. Our bomb disposal experts can often identify the precise Tehran factories in which car bombs and other deadly explosive devices have been manufactured. Iran is now stoking the violence by warning that it could do even worse if it gets its way with its nuclear ambitions. This week the Iranian president made his most chilling threat yet against European support for Israel, warning that Europe could get hurt if ‘a storm begins’ over Palestine. ‘It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals [Israel]. This is an ultimatum.’

Kanan Makiya, the great Iraqi historian, acknowledges we have made mistakes in Iraq, but he still believes that it was right ‘to get rid of what was an exceptional tyranny, even by the terrible standards of the Middle East’. He says, ‘As an Iraqi, I cannot ever say it was wrong to support the overthrow of that dictatorship. And I challenge any human being to say to me that it was wrong.’

Tony Blair and George Bush are absolutely right to insist that we cannot abandon Iraq. We are there under a United Nations mandate (soon up for renewal), assisting the legitimate, elected government. We should hand over to the Iraqis as they become more capable, but a premature pullout would condemn Iraq and the region to unbelievable horror. And it would be a famous victory for our Islamist enemies, who declared war on us long before we went into Iraq. If we allow ourselves and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis to be defeated, that defeat will be only the first of very many — in the region and the world. The Islamists will give no quarter.