Iraq was an operation which was only ever going to be temporary, we had originally been promised the commitment would be for 1-2 years and we stayed for 6, if a decision had been made that it was the primary strategic campaign then the UK would not have volunteered to take on additional responisbilities in Afghanistan in 2006, (year 3 in Iraq) and increase it’s forces there from around 1,000 to approaching 10,000 or more than double the commitment to Iraq.

The intresting thing will be the Strategic Defence Review after the next election, scheduled for sometime between now and June 2010. The recent budget has announced that bailing out the Banks and the ecconomic crisis has doubled the National debt from 40% of GDP to 80% of GDP in 3 years and Defence is going to have to share some of the pain in paying that down so already the new carriers are under threat, even the Trident replacement is being seriously discussed by the Tories.

The question has to be asked if the campaign in Afghanistan is in the intrests of “the West” and is a fully supported NATO operation why should the UK commitment be bigger than France, Germany and Italy combinded when all 3 have bigger populations and bigger economies?

Maybe a gradual ‘defeat’ of the invading forces has been better for Basra in the long run than a crushing ‘victory’ would have been. Defeat and victory are the same thing, it just depends on a point of view. Your view is a blinkered Amercian view, the British view a blinkered British one, the only view that counts is the view of the Basran people.

The better question to be asking-with more relevance to both the US and British efforts-is when do the Iraqis start getting the blame they deserve for the failures that occur?

We argue we can’t leave because the government of Iraq is “not ready”. Even today, the powers that be are trying to find ways around the SOFA agreements so that we can stay longer-for what purpose I am not really sure. Their has to be a point when they are left to rise or fall on their own devices. As far as I am concerned that point was several years ago. US objectives were accomplishe long ago, any British objectives were subsets of that.

Britain is leaving-because staying was never in their long term interest. We should do the same.

All politics are local and all alliances temporary.

We should govern ourselves accordingly.

http://www.dni.gov/nic/special_globaltrends2010.html#implications

While I’m skeptical of any predictions of the future I would say that this thread illustrates along with the Pirate issue that the agenda will indeed be dominated by five questions.

We should review the rationale for invading Iraq; we were told it was because Saddam had WMD and his use of such was imminent. That turned out to be false.

After the WMD reason was revealed to be inoperative, we were told it was to bring democracy to Iraq. That reason doesn’t particularly work for a number of reasons.

Sometimes the most obvious reasons are correct: we miscalculated. The Bush administration felt 9/11 provided the political cover to get rid of Saddam (cleaning up after the elder Bush). We expected to rout the Iraqi army–which we did–and the people would greet us with gratitude. We’d then have a pro-American, pro-democracy foothold in the ME.

Dan has it pretty much right. The UK/Iraq involvement was largely political cover to mask the fact the invasion really didn’t enjoy global support.

Re WII, Byron would do well to remember we didn’t enter the European war out of the goodness of our heart. We did so only after Germany declared war on us and after the German Navy had been sinking our merchant shipping with abandon.