Every mention of the 'coalition of the willing' reminds us that there is not much left of the international 'willing' troops in Iraq. After the declaration yesterday from the British and the Danes that they would withdraw, the coalition actually now exists only on paper, and the expression has become a synonym for political and military miscalculation. It has already been a synonym for violating international law for a long time.
Bush was clearly not even in the position to persuade his allies Tony Blair and Anders Fogh Rasmussen to delay their statements until after the next round of voting on Iraq in Congress. The news comes at a time when the current US offensive appears to even be leading to an increase in violence in Iraq -- and the withdrawal announcements from London and Copenhagen sound more than ever like declarations of surrender.
Blair is under pressure. After all, it was the military leadership which recently saw the British presence as a problem -- and we don't need to mention what the general public thinks. Blair has not fulfilled the hopes of the military -- the scope of the withdrawal is not large enough and the time schedule is too imprecise.
One can rule out that his motive was to do a favor for his presumed successor, Gordon Brown -- the animosity between the two is too great for that. It probably has more to do with the fact that the situation in Basra does not correspond to the images of civil war coming from Baghdad. And the fact that the security forces -- which are infiltrated by Shiites -- have 'proved' themselves as capable of keeping order.
The withdrawal of 1,600 soldiers that Blair announced yesterday is above all a clear message to the British at home: The security situation in the south of Iraq, where the UK's troops are stationed, has improved so much that fewer foreign soldiers will be needed there in the future. It's a first message of success, then, rather than capitulation.
Whether Blair's withdrawal suits Bush is questionable. Many war-weary American television viewers will ask why their own boys have to keep fighting when their most important allies are leaving. For Bush as well as Blair, it will come down to whether they can convince their voters of their interpretation of the facts: that the situation in Iraq is difficult but not hopeless.
If Blair cannot leave behind a stable and democratic Iraq, as he had once imagined it, he wants to at least resign having partly kept his promise that British troops would not be bogged down for the long term in a civil war in Iraq.
If Bush and the British are lucky, they will manage the withdrawal in good time. For Bush and the Americans, however, their own withdrawal operation will become much more difficult. The US president has no hope of being able to bring his troops back home in the foreseeable future. If he did so, Iraq would probably sink into civil war and the whole Middle East region would fall into new chaos. Bush has to worry much more about his place in the history books than Blair.
Bush was clearly not even in the position to persuade his allies Tony Blair and Anders Fogh Rasmussen to delay their statements until after the next round of voting on Iraq in Congress. The news comes at a time when the current US offensive appears to even be leading to an increase in violence in Iraq -- and the withdrawal announcements from London and Copenhagen sound more than ever like declarations of surrender.
Blair is under pressure. After all, it was the military leadership which recently saw the British presence as a problem -- and we don't need to mention what the general public thinks. Blair has not fulfilled the hopes of the military -- the scope of the withdrawal is not large enough and the time schedule is too imprecise.
One can rule out that his motive was to do a favor for his presumed successor, Gordon Brown -- the animosity between the two is too great for that. It probably has more to do with the fact that the situation in Basra does not correspond to the images of civil war coming from Baghdad. And the fact that the security forces -- which are infiltrated by Shiites -- have 'proved' themselves as capable of keeping order.
The withdrawal of 1,600 soldiers that Blair announced yesterday is above all a clear message to the British at home: The security situation in the south of Iraq, where the UK's troops are stationed, has improved so much that fewer foreign soldiers will be needed there in the future. It's a first message of success, then, rather than capitulation.
Whether Blair's withdrawal suits Bush is questionable. Many war-weary American television viewers will ask why their own boys have to keep fighting when their most important allies are leaving. For Bush as well as Blair, it will come down to whether they can convince their voters of their interpretation of the facts: that the situation in Iraq is difficult but not hopeless.
If Blair cannot leave behind a stable and democratic Iraq, as he had once imagined it, he wants to at least resign having partly kept his promise that British troops would not be bogged down for the long term in a civil war in Iraq.
If Bush and the British are lucky, they will manage the withdrawal in good time. For Bush and the Americans, however, their own withdrawal operation will become much more difficult. The US president has no hope of being able to bring his troops back home in the foreseeable future. If he did so, Iraq would probably sink into civil war and the whole Middle East region would fall into new chaos. Bush has to worry much more about his place in the history books than Blair.
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