Blair has been blinded by an imperialist illusion

(I wanted to record this excellent article from the Guardian as it sums up what I feel about the ludicrously untenable British position in Iraq.)

Britain has been asked to leave Iraq by the leader it helped to install. Only arrogance or myopia can explain its refusal

Simon Jenkins
Wednesday May 31, 2006
The Guardian

What is British policy in Iraq? This week, as four more Britons die, it is more obscure than ever. Iraq is becoming a 21st-century Dardanelles, a lethal project sustained only because exit is too painful for politicians to contemplate.

Tony Blair has long stated that British troops are in that country to establish democratic institutions and guarantee security and prosperity. Since security and prosperity are as distant as ever, democracy is vitiated. Rising violence has rendered the policy incoherent. Blair and his colleagues must rely for public support on an increasingly false narrative of their purpose, as false as the reasons for the original invasion. They are prisoners of denial.

Civilian deaths in Iraq are running at 1,000 a month. Kidnappings take place daily, and ethnic cleansing is rife. Some 10,000 professionals have fled the country. The police are nowhere trusted. This is beyond any tolerable definition of security. Chaos was previously described by Downing Street as "isolated" and "not to detract" from the success of the occupation. Progress was allegedly being made away from the cameras. This is denied by all available statistics of power, water and petrol supplies. The defence secretary, Des Browne, was reduced last week to claiming that "things are better in the country areas" - long the last cry from the bunker of defeat.

British briefings on Iraq are a remorseless diminuendo. First the troops would leave once elections were held. Then they would stay until violence abated. Blair recently said, "The violence is why the troops are there." This explanation, as he must know from the history of Northern Ireland, hands the initiative to the enemy, allowing the terrorists to dictate the course of the occupation. In Basra, the militias can now imprison British troops in their barracks for as long as they choose, or as long as it suits their sponsors in Tehran.

There is no sense in which Britain is any longer in command in Iraq. It must even fight to recover its casualties. Basra has become a battleground between rival militias. Soldiers patrol intermittently and bravely show the flag (which is more than the Italians do), but they offer little more than target practice. This is not countering violence, nor does it constitute control. British troop deaths are devoid of any rationale.

The government's fallback position has been that, irrespective of peace, securing it can soon be handed over to local troops. Yet there is no evidence that, however many Iraqis take the coalition shilling, they can reliably be deployed against the ever more brazen militias and gangs. "Iraqisation" depends not on numbers or weapons but on morale. In the present climate there is no such morale, except in Kurdistan where militias have become the army. British policy accepts the de facto partition of the Kurds, yet not that of the Sunni and Shia regions. Why? There will be no stability in Iraq until this happens and yet the policy is to deny it.

A final fallback has been that British troops would leave when asked to do so by the Iraqi government. Most of the 110 coalition bases would be handed over to local brigades. A start would be made this summer with the British vacating Maysan and Muthanna provinces. The Americans would retreat initially into their dozen or more super-bases, and perhaps be offered long-term leases.

This exit strategy was galvanised last week when the new Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, said that he expected coalition troops to leave 16 of Iraq's 18 provinces by the end of the year. The only remaining American troops would be in lawless Sunni Anbar and in Baghdad, where Maliki needs the Americans to protect his green zone fortress and airport. His statement implied a total withdrawal from all Shia provinces, including the British from the south.

Maliki's statement should have been music to London's ears. Here was an elected leader eager to appear his own man, to show the militias, clerics, warlords and ubiquitous Iranian agents that he was master and not a coalition puppet. The coalition has every interest in bolstering such determination and expediting the withdrawal he requests. It is supported by the shrewd American ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

So why did Blair rush to Baghdad last week and dismiss Maliki's request out of hand? His spokesman indicated that Iraq would not be remotely "ready" for such a British troop departure by the end of the year. Offered a window through which to escape, Blair slammed it shut. Told to prepare to leave by the very democratic leader he had helped install, he refused to listen.

The suspicion is that Washington and London will withdraw only at the moment of their choosing, when it can be orchestrated as a victory. With violence and anarchy on the rise, such a prospect is implausible - not just by the end of this year but in the foreseeable future. Knowing that things are not getting better, London now finds itself claiming that they are getting worse before they can get better. It no longer matters what Iraqis say.

The hidden premise of Blair's position is that British (and American) troops must by definition be a blessing to any nation they occupy. It is inconceivable that they could increase anarchy or that their departure might alleviate it. This arrogant assumption runs through every argument about Iraq at present. It is the last shred of imperialist illusion, held even by many who opposed the invasion. It is encapsulated in the brainless Tory proposition that in Iraq we must "finish what we started".

As long as British politics holds this view, the occupation will never end. It does not matter how many Iraqis (apparently a majority) consider it a magnet to violence. Each of some 50 daily attacks on foreign troops tends to involve needless Iraqi casualties and the terrorisation of neighbourhoods. The reported massacre of two dozen civilians in Haditha by US marines last year pales alongside the hundreds killed in daily shootings at checkpoints and in bombings and searches.

The occupation is plainly not bringing peace to Iraq nor is it preventing civil war, however defined. Almost all coalition forces are now hunkered down in their barracks protecting themselves. Even reconstruction, such as it is, has been subcontracted to private mercenaries. Iraq is a failed state. Its democracy is meaningless without order, and order is beyond Britain's capacity to deliver.

Now Blair has been asked by the elected ruler of Iraq to leave by the end of the year. By what conceivable right does he refuse?

simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk

34 Maiden Voyage

This was yesterday - the 12th of September (I'm not superstitious, but I wasn't going to launch today!) The first photo shows son Ed pushing the boat out - literally.



The second shows trials under power - Lugg rows easily and tracks well, although the rowlocks jump out of their sockets a little easily if you get the oar blade at the wrong angle.



The third and fourth show the little bugger actually sailing - which he does well: stable (I started out sitting on the floor but soon realised that it was fine to perch up on the centre thwart), a fair turn of speed for the hull length in a breeze, and safe. We had winds of force 1 to 3 only, but it seems that Lugg won't tack through less than 120 degrees in winds this light - inevitable for a small lug-rigged boat, I imagine.





I had a great time and I think Ed enjoyed himself too. More photos to follow when he sends me copies of the ones he took.

33 It's finished!

The past four weeks have seen a stream of visitors staying at our house (they all remembered Norfolk this summer), and it's been great to see everyone. But it hasn't helped Lugg's progress. Nor has the very changeable weather - no danger of a hosepipe ban here. But at last, by fitting in the work between visitors and rain, it is done.

The first thing was to get the hull finished completely (note the rowlocks - they were a fiddle):



Then I made the new rudder - a higher aspect ratio than the original, and with some attempt at a chord section (don't laugh when you see it, James):



The rudder was made from 12mm ply and the Optimist rudder fittings used. The hard part was the lump at the top for the tiller (I reused the original tiller as it looks nicely of an age with the boat. The original rudder just looked tatty.) Next I refurbished the centreplate, cutting out the soft part, filling and reshaping (another pseudo-chord section):



I think the colours clash nicely here. I might think about a bare wood handle for the centreplate at some point. Edmund will be pleased to hear that I took his advice and used a matt poly varnish on the rowing thwart - it now looks like the other oak in the boat; much better.

Finally I wheeled it out and stepped the mast and hoisted the sail:



The halyard is a foot too short and very old and ropey (Ha!), the sheet is an old bit of blue polyprop and also has to go, and I need a mooring cleat, so it's off to Wroxham this afternoon. Maiden voyage at the end of the week, weather permitting?

And the other piece of good news, following on from the last entry, is that James' MG is finished and has passed the MOT test. The summer starts here!

32 No progress

Instead of finishing Lugg I've been working on James' (eldest son) classic MGB while he's been on holiday in France and Spain. It needed quite a lot of help to get through the MOT test. Here's what one of the front wings looked like after we cut away the rusty bits:



And here's what it looks like now with new wings fitted and primed as it goes back for a final coat of paint, reassembly of the headlamps, valance and bumper, and then the dreaded test:



It's been two weeks of pretty hard work, dodging the showers, rubbing down , filling, painting etc etc. The car is 36 years old and should be good for a few more yet. Now back to the boat!

31 Look at that finish!

Three coats of epoxy on the gunwale timber and it's looking good if I say so myself! The centre thwart is not varnished 'cos your arse would slide all over the place when you were rowing if it was - it's bare oak.



(The blob on the nose is a piece of oak stuck on as a finial which is awaiting shaping - I've since faired it in and it looks good too.)

And here's a view of Lugg's derriere:



I've just started remodelling the centre plate, and I've ordered rudder fittings from some place in the Midlands called Purple Marine. Found them on the Internet and they're charging about one third of the price asked by the local (Wroxham) Chandler for these items.

Prediction: one more week.

30 Dumlaminatin'

That's what we should rename our house. It's been hours and hours of cutting and glueing and, latterly, planing and sanding, but now the gunwales are finished and ready to be varnished (with epoxy, of course!)



Now I should be able to make some real fast progress - after I've fixed the Landcruiser's clutch hydraulics, that is. But it is only a couple of weeks now if the weather holds; then, the maiden voyage.

29 Who knows where the time goes?

So we went to Brighton for a week, then I had to fix the lights on the caravan, now I'm having to fix the clutch on the Landcruiser; all this means that I've done very little to the boat for about three weeks. It will be progressing soon, I promise.

28 Back again (in progress)

Not much done in the last week and a half due to very pleasant family life interlude, but I've got an outer skin of oak on the gunwales and started to laminate the tops, I've started to trim around the stern thwart, and I've roughed out a new centre-plate, though much remains to be done there. This shows the gunwale as it is at the moment.




Clearly the completion date has gone back at least a couple of weeks, but it won't be long!

I've seen the light

At last I understand those modern French philosophers! And to prove it I've deconstructed my rockery.

27 Over, under, sideways, down

Time to turn Lugg back over, the paint having had three days to harden and me three days to garden. In this photo I've propped him up to extract the old centre plate.



This was struggle on my own (Linda having gone to RHS Wisley for the day), so when it was time to get him on his trailer I enlisted the help of Adrian, my next door neighbour, who seemed to welcome the break from fixing his brother in law's Land Rover.



Just the finishing touches now - a few more days work.