Smash hit

What of Britain in this? Kenneth Clarke rightly reminded his spineless Conservative party on Thursday that Britain is party to this cruel war. Its justification was that the world might be better if a particular ruler were not running Iraq, other things being equal.

They never are equal. The war was sold to the British public by one of the most grotesque deceptions in modern government: Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell’s dodgy dossiers. People were deceived, but it is hard to believe that Downing Street deceived itself.

All warnings, from the Foreign Office, Arab countries, the US State Department, even US army chiefs, warned Bush and Blair that Saddam Hussein’s secular, centralist regime was all that held Iraq together, and then only just. Topple it and strong authority must instantly replace it. Even then, the autonomy granted by the West to the Kurds would probably see a bid for autonomy from the oil-rich Shi’ite south. That for sure would mean a Sunni revolt.

All this was disregarded by the small group in the Pentagon who, as Bob Woodward and others have reported, waged this campaign from the start. They did so with Blair’s compliance. He and the Americans handed power to anyone filling the vacuum they had created: sheikhs, warlords and the Iran-backed private militias, now rich on filched American aid. It is hard to see how this was an ideal test bed for a new democracy.

I never saw Iraq as an American colony, although the Pentagon certainly hoped for a military ally. But how the government’s post- invasion strategy tallied with any sensible objective is a mystery. January’s much-lauded election, dominated by admittedly brave expatriates, was a foretaste of last week’s constitutional fiasco. Its collapse was as sad as it was inevitable. It ended with the absurdity of frantic American officials pleading with Sunnis to accept sharia clauses in the constitution so as to close a deal with the Shi’ite clerics. Whatever else the Pentagon wants in Baghdad it is not female emancipation.

Baghdad now faces a ghastly choice. It is between the continued anarchy of the American-British presence and the anarchy that would follow its withdrawal, as Sunnis and Muslim militias carve up central Iraq in a de facto partition. This would be no more separatist than what the Americans have already conceded to the Kurds in the north. Since the second option is likely to happen anyway, the only grim virtue lies in getting it over with.

Security within 100 miles of Baghdad is getting worse, not better. “Staying the course” is not working. It is a catchphrase, not a policy. It simply involves killing people and getting them killed in return. A planned and co-ordinated coalition withdrawal is now simply the least worst option.

America can at least show reasons for attacking Iraq, an extension of its retaliatory rage after 9/11. Britain had none. Blair’s support for Bush was unnecessary and his failure to exert any leverage over his policy is baffling, even to his aides. He is where no general should ever be: in a fight whose conduct, course and outcome he cannot control. His soldiers must stand by and watch as American-induced lawlessness spreads south into British-controlled territory.

Blair hopes soon to withdraw troops from Basra under cover of deploying them to Afghanistan, for reasons that are obscure. He cannot do so if he also thinks, in line with Washington, that “the corner is about to turn in Iraq”. Were that true, extra troops should surely be sent to boost security. The fact is that Blair is in a political Guantanamo. In the wrong place at the wrong time, he finds himself a prisoner without trial at the Pentagon’s whim.

Since 1815 and the battle of New Orleans, Louisiana has not been Britain’s concern. Baghdad is. We are party to the destruction of a city and the dismembering of its country amid growing insecurity. The greatest arrogance of all is that we can somehow do more good than harm by staying.

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