Saigon, 1975 or Basrah 2007?
As much as I would hate to admit it, but an embarrassing retreat from Basrah would be about par the course in what has - for the best equipped military partnership - been an unmitigated disaster of a campaign. One that went on for at least 3 years too long and suffered from undue interteference from politicians wanting to secure their legacy and deluded enough to believe that if we just give it one more push we will win. Sorry, but you won't; you can throw all the troops at it you like, but the insurgents have one thing we don't have - time. And they aren't answerable to an electorate.
Well fellas, I take my hat off to you - you've really f*cked it this time haven't you. If nothing else, Iraq demonstrates that politicians have no place in the running of a war. They should set the objectives and then leave us to get on with the job until it is done rather than interfering at every stage and being half hearted about the prosecution of the campaign.
So what will we learn from this? Sadly, very little that will be of any use. There will be lots of scratching of heads, plenty of sucking of teeth and lots of senior officer huddles as people defend their reputations, hastily creating excuses and denying all responsibility for what has gone wrong. Doctrine teams will disappear into offices at Shrivenham and produce countless turgid papers and booklets whose only practical application is to set on fire next time the heating fails in the MQ over winter or to throw at the enemy or bore them to death with when we next run out ammo in the middle of an op. And the politicians will defend their reputations, proudly stating that the world is a safer place for their intervention despite all evidence to the contrary.
The photo is the famous one of the Air America cab on the appartment
rooftop in Saigon in 1975. Give it a year and it could easily resemble the scramble of very senior officers, campaign planners and politicians retreating from the blame and responsibility of screwing up what should have been a properly thought out and executed campaign.
That said, I really don't see how the American administration can throw stones in our direction. The withdrawal from Baghdad is going to be one hell of a fighting retreat.
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Middle East foreign policy is very much like making love to a beautiful woman - it's horrendously expensive, very messy and you always leave it too late to pull out - Swiss Tony"