The British Unsurge is working

Ian Welsh presents a good point that the presence of coalition troops in Iraq (and quite probably Afghanistan) is actually the disease, not the cure.

A case in point is the reaction of insurgent militias to the British withdrawal from the field in Iraq's Basra province.

The British army says violence in Basra has fallen by 90% since it withdrew from the southern Iraqi city earlier this year.

Around 500 British soldiers left one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in the heart of the city in early September and stopped conducting regular foot patrols.

A spokesman says the Iraqi security forces still come under attack from militants in Basra, but the overall level of violence is down 90% since the British troops left.

Britain is scheduled to return control of Basra province to Iraqi officials next month, officially ending Britain's combat role in Iraq.

This underscores the effect of two completely different strategies in dealing with the violence in Iraq. One being the US method of doing business, (beat them until we all bleed to death), the other being the British solution, (let's just back away and let them sort it out themselves).

The time has long past where we can continue to point fingers at the Bush administration and declare that the conditions in Iraq are a George W. Bush creation of his own making. We already know that and only a total idiot could argue otherwise. Our best hope is that someday, someone has the brass to haul Bush and his cohort into a court of law and charge them with waging aggressive war and all other associated crimes commensurate with the actions of a country attempting to expand beyond its direct control of peoples beyond it borders.

The so-called "Surge" is little more than an escalation. In order for it to be declared a success it requires attrition of insurgent militias on a scale which would leave them unable to regroup, re-man and re-arm. Few resistant insurgencies in history have ever been broken to the degree that they have been rendered totally inert.

The surge operation in Iraq, the concentration of troops intended to break the resistant militias, is faced with a problem the Bush administration is either unable or unwilling to comprehend. Even if General David Petraeus reaches a point where he can declare the operation a success, he must surely know that he can never win. Once the surge operation winds down, the militias will gear-up, unless Petraeus can assure everyone that absolutely none of the prime movers of those militias remain in place. The arithmetic is pretty basic.

The US modus operandi seems to have an associated message. Something along the line of, If you persist, we'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget.

The problem is, the resistant militias are aware of that lesson. They are prepared to continue anyway. Given the method of warfare the resistant militias employ, sending in more troops just enriches their targeting opportunities.

The long and short of it is, regardless of what Bush, Cheney, Gates and Petraeus think they are likely to accomplish, in the end there will still be groups of insurgents prepared to start the whole thing over again. The "Surge" will have the end result of having wasted lives, resources and riches for nothing more than achieving a delay in the inevitable. The factions that feed the insurgency will continue to vie for power.

The British have simply cut out the middle. With a longer history and some bitter lessons sewn onto regimental banners, they recognized that a persistent insurgency in Basra was not only something they could not defeat using typical patrol or cordon and search methods, but that employing those kinds of tactics was probably contributing to the problem. The very presence of the British army was the fuel which resistant groups needed to justify their campaign.

By removing themselves from the field, the British have reduced the opportunity for insurgent militias to strike and eliminated at least one vital reason for the existence of such groups. The British have employed a firefighting technique which always works. In the absence of overwhelming force (a principle which has never been applied in either the Iraq or Afghanistan occupations), find a way to eliminate one element of the tetrahedron which allows a fire to continue burning and the fire will go out.

While I hold no hope that the minds in the Bush administration can see anything beyond a misplaced belief that merely possessing the means to turn an entire country into a glass parking lot will cause them to eventually achieve dominion over Iraq, it's worth noting that they have yet to even try another method. While it is easily recognized that diplomacy and negotiation are beyond the intellectual and academic reach of the current US administration, at some point the realization that their current limited approach is only exacerbating the problem has to eventually hit home.

Having created the vacuum which allowed a resistant insurgency to flourish, they are now feeding it while, at the same time, attempting to quash it.

Of course, that methodology crawls up from the likes of vile Bush admin insiders like Michael Ledeen whose words are repeated as some form of holy mantra by the profoundly stupid.

The British method may not be perfect, but it is considerably more successful than the Bush method. So, why won't the US even attempt the British strategy? Easy. With depraved and penetratingly ignorant people in possession of an unearned and bequeathed journalistic platform saying things like this:

There is nothing we want to see happen in the Middle East that can be accomplished through talking around long tables festooned with bottled water and fresh fruit at Swiss hotels, that cannot be accomplished faster and more permanently through war. But there is plenty that cannot be achieved by such gabfests that can only be achieved through war.

There is little hope that the Bush administration, the prime audience of such remarkably hebetudinous thought, can see anything at the table beyond the water bottles and the fruit. Because they view all other persons at the table as culturally and militarily inferior. War works for the Bushs and the Goldbergs of this world because it requires a minimal expenditure of mental energy. And since they have very little to begin with, they can't afford to waste it on anything beyond the examination of their own navels.

Harry stays home as Basra starts to boil over

A quarter of a century ago the British Royal Navy was attempting to pull Prince Andrew out of HMS Invincible. His ship was going to war and there was a fear that, in his role as a naval air arm Sea King pilot, he could be killed in action.

His mother pulled some strings. Andrew went to war with his ship and squadron and served in the Falklands. There was always the threat of him being shot down, particularly during missile decoy operations.

Prince Harry, Andrew's nephew, isn't getting the same kind of support. General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff of the British army has refused to allow Harry to serve with his unit in Iraq.

Prince Harry will not be sent with his unit to Iraq, Britain's top general said Wednesday, citing specific threats to the third in line to the throne and the risks to his fellow soldiers.

Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, the army chief of staff who recently traveled to Iraq, said the changing situation on the ground exposed the prince to too much danger. Media scrutiny of Harry's potential deployment exacerbated the situation, he said.

``There have been a number of specific threats, some reported and some not reported, that relate directly to Prince Harry as an individual,'' Dannatt said. ``These threats exposed him and those around him to a degree of risk I considered unacceptable.''

The debate over whether Prince Harry should deploy with his unit has raged in the UK with some people claiming the "privilege" is unwarranted and others suggesting he presents too great a risk to his troops. If only there was an easy answer.

To Harry's credit, he always remained eager to stay with his unit, no matter where it was deployed. He was willing to go to Iraq, which provides a remarkable contrast to the offspring of the American aristocracy who have consistently made loud noises about continuing the Iraq war without actually serving in anything close to a uniform.

Harry, however, is a target and it would be foolish to minimize the effect that would have on his unit, the Blues and Royals. His presence alone would increase the risk to his fellow soldiers and place them in unnecessary danger.

It's not worth it.

There is also another factor. General Sir Richard Dannatt has made it clear from the time he assumed the appointment as Chief of the General Staff, that he was opposed to a long deployment in Iraq and publicly stated that he wanted the British army to start drawing down its forces in the Basra region. Britain has already laid plans to start withdrawing troops. General Dannatt would probably prefer that such a withdrawal happen as quietly and as incident-free as possible. There is certainly no publicity gain from having a high-profile "Royal" with dusty boots drawing fire from Shi'ite militias.

While Basra is not suffering the same spate of car-bombs and sectarian violence as other areas of Iraq, there is now a problem of Shi'ite militias fighting each other to gain control of oil-fields and oil exports.

Sporadic militia battles, endemic corruption and death threats now scar the once tranquil port. "Everyone's trying to grab resources and make a quick profit without considering a long-term programme or attempting to establish a power base for the future," said Peter Harling, an analyst for the International Crisis Group who focuses on Iraq.

"The interesting thing about violence in Basra is that it's not related to the two big factors of violence elsewhere: fighting the occupation and sectarian violence," he said. Residents fear that violence could be a sign of things to come, especially as British troops disengage from the south. Britain, which has already turned over three southern provinces to Iraqi control, is poised to reduce its 7,000-strong force in Basra to about 5,500 by the beginning of June.

And it would appear that the British are putting on a happy face and planning on leaving no matter what happens.

Some in Basra are worried that a British withdrawal would encourage groups to use force to control the oil fields. With sabotage halting exports in northern fields, the Basra terminal is essentially Iraq's only source of income at present. Attacks by suspected militants against British forces are on the rise-April was the deadliest month for British troops since the first month of the war-but a spokeswoman for the British consulate in Basra played down fears of political warfare after the planned reduction in British forces. "The most important question is not whether there'll be trouble in Basra but whether Iraqi security forces can handle it. We have seen the Iraqis are increasingly ready and willing to assume more responsibilities," she said.

Because, there will be trouble whether the British stay or not. The British have now reached a point in their operations in Iraq which will play hard on British troops.

No one wants to be the last person killed when you're quitting the place anyway.