UK forces to stay in Iraq

[East Street Trader]

The Prime Minister has replied to a letter from the Liberal Democrat leader saying that UK forces still have an important job to do in Iraq.

Seemingly that job is "assisting the Iraqi Government and its security forces in delivering security and helping build their capabilities - military and civilian - so that they can take full responsibility for the security of their own country."

The text of the letter is here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6966491.stm

I find what he has to say dispiriting in the extreme. The fact that he clings to the notion that holding an election has created a government perhaps the most dispiriting of all.

[C0ckney]

iraq is a mess. however, i don't see how we can, realistically or morally, do anything but stay there at the moment.

[Provost Harrison]

Yep, that's the problem. Simply put, we should never have gone there in the first place...

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by C0ckney
iraq is a mess. however, i don't see how we can, realistically or morally, do anything but stay there at the moment.

This is a pretty defeatist point of view. What's the sollution then, to stay there forever, fighting a war of attrition against an opposition made up of the same people you're there to "protect"?

[Dauphin]

Re: UK forces to stay in Iraq

Originally posted by East Street Trader
I find what he has to say dispiriting in the extreme. The fact that he clings to the notion that holding an election has created a government perhaps the most dispiriting of all.

More dispiriting is that he is clinging to the notion that he has created a government in the UK without an election.

[kittenOFchaos]

British forces...that could simply be an SAS squad and an embassy guard

[kittenOFchaos]

Re: Re: UK forces to stay in Iraq

Originally posted by Dauphin


More dispiriting is that he is clinging to the notion that he has created a government in the UK without an election.

Not really, we all knew the deal last election.

What is worse is that there still isn't a viable alternative political party to take over power in this country.

I'd never vote for a man like Cameron and I don't think he is the sort of person that could be a British Prime Minister.

[East Street Trader]

If the Liberal Democrats or the Tories take up a clear cut stance that they will withdraw immediately from Iraq I think they will get my vote.

I can give a lot of respect to the proposition that withdrawing now leaves a lot of Iraqis in the lurch. But I just don't believe that maintaining UK troops there is doing those people much good.

The stated object, propping up the al-Maliki government, is desperately weak. The legitimacy it derives from the elction is declining and it will soon be no more than just another faction. And a weak one at that.

And the presence of the troops is a standing affront to arabs generally, with all that is doing to cause friction between moslems and the West.

I wish the US forces every success with the surge but I have no faith whatsoever in the idea that some brief period of calm - even if achieved - will somehow allow the al-Maliki government to gain the allegiance of the army and the police and to make the country secure.

The commitment Brown has given, if adhered to, will last for a very long time. Years and decades rather than weeks and months.

It will cost a great deal of money and will further destabilise both the region and the world at large.

[Sandman]

The Lib Dems have said they will pull out of Iraq.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by General Ludd
This is a pretty defeatist point of view. What's the sollution then, to stay there forever, fighting a war of attrition against an opposition made up of the same people you're there to "protect"?

if i knew the solution to iraq, then i wouldn't here telling you guys about it.

we've created a huge problem in iraq, and that puts us under an obligation to try to sort it out. not that it's gone well so far, but what else can we do? should we pack up and leave the iraqis to it, and hope they get tired of killing each other?

[Sandman]

We've basically left already. 5,500 troops left.

[East Street Trader]

Originally posted by C0ckney

we've created a huge problem in iraq

Well, we have certainly contributed - by removing Saddam Hussein and his regime.

But we have not created the hostility between Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurd. Nor is it us who are violently struggling to achieve power in Iraq.

Basically you get the government you deserve.

It is the Iraqis who landed themselves with Saddam Hussein. He offended their neighbours, further entrenched factional divisions and made aggressive enough noises towards the West that he got the country invaded.

Plainly once US and UK troops are withdrawn the power struggle in Iraq will intensify. Iran and, I imagine, Turkey will take a hand. Prospects for peace loving Iraqis are not good.

But it is their country and it is for them to sort it out. If I thought the presence of the troops for some reasonable period - a year or two say - would help peace loving Iraqis to sort themselves out without lots more violence then I'd agree with you. But I don't. They are too divided and too wedded to their factional interests.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
It is the Iraqis who landed themselves with Saddam Hussein. He offended their neighbours, further entrenched factional divisions and made aggressive enough noises towards the West that he got the country invaded.

Nope he didn´t,
he just invaded Kuwait.

Didn´t he even ask the USA beforehand if it is O.K. to invade Kuwait (and got no negative reply)?

There were no threats or the like of him against the west at this time and also nothing that made it appear like he could become a threat to the west in the near or far future

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Well, we have certainly contributed - by removing Saddam Hussein and his regime.

But we have not created the hostility between Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurd. Nor is it us who are violently struggling to achieve power in Iraq.

this is true. however, we did unleash those forces, setting free the resentment, bitterness and ethnic tension, that had built up over the years under saddam.

iraq needs a political solution and it must the iraqis who find it, so our, that is to say the coalition's, job, must be to try to create the environment in which one can be found. we have failed to do so up to now, but that doesn't mean that we should stop trying.

of course people in iraq are divided along ethnic and religious lines, but that doesn't mean that peace can't be achieved. however it can only happen where there is some measure of stability in people's lives, and where the warring factions feel they have more to gain through peace, than through continued fighting. if the west had not created the conditions which made peace possible in bosnia, we would in all probability, still be hearing about bosnian croats, serbs and muslims, killing each other today.

[East Street Trader]

Yes, I believe the intervention in the Balkans was a good thing.

If Iraq's immediate neighbours were willing to fulfil a similar role that might work.

The US, however, would not I imagine agree to Iranian and Syrian forces occupying Iraq.

The trouble, it seems to me, with saying that the warring factions might, given peaceful conditions, achieve a nation state with settled government is that down the centuries that is not something Iraq has previously achieved. Why should they suddenly do so now? Before the invasion they had not even got as far as hereditary monarchy. It took England a lot of time to go from a loose coalition of tribes to a settled monarchy and many centuries more to evolve into a constitutional monarchy. Surely it will take the Iraqis just as long?