As the British are learning, on the verge of losing Basra.

Col Anderson said British troops "did the best they could", but added: "I'm not sure they did as good a job as they did traditionally. This isn't Northern Ireland. They thought they had a pretty good model but Iraq is a different culture."

Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, added: "Basra is a mess, and the exit strategy attempted there has failed. It is, for the purposes of future Iraq policymaking, an example of what not to do.

"Basra has gone far towards revising the common American image of British soldiers as perhaps the world's best at counter-insurgency."

I think that Petraeus has rewritten the book.

So what do you think went wrong here?

Ulster, like Basra, is a perfect example of what happens when you intentionally do not try to win militarily: The local politicians take control. Ulster is as politically divided as it ever has been between the firmest Republicans and the firmest Unionists.

The Commonwealth victory in Malaya is a far better (although older) example and the British refused to follow it because it was a bit heavyhanded and the light touch in Northern Ireland seemed so much nicer.

The problems in North Ireland were solved when the Republic of Ireland suddenly fixed it's economy and had no interest in financing the conflict. Money dried up and the IRA was forced to deal or die (and in one case tried theft to finance their work). It had nothing to do with the military presence.

> So what do you think went wrong here?

I suspect a large part of it had to do with just not having enough troops there. Basra has 1/10th of Iraq's population, but the UK had ~1/30th as many troops stations there as the US had stationed throughout all of Iraq.

So what do you think went wrong here?

What went wrong is that Britain is pulling out of Iraq, and in so doing has revealed all of its "progress" to be a house of sand. It was only a few months ago that one sign of "progress" was the Brits handing power over to Iraqis in four provinces. Well guess what, two of the governors of those provinces have since been assassinated.

So how would Petraeus handle Basra?

So how would Petraeus handle Basra?

He would do the opposite of the British: He would surge instead of drawing down.

who are the british losing Basra to?

Who is the enemy?

Make no mistake; Ulster was not a victory for the British Army. It was a surrender - to an enemy that was losing. Sinn Fein/IRA should never have had a share of power; now they have. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, both convicted terrorists and both suspected murderers, should be either in jail or six feet under; they are now British MPs.

What caused the situation to be as good as it now is was nothing to do with the Army; in fact that particular benefit was given to the UK by Al Qaeda. I don't know the figures, but am quite sure that IRA financing from the USA took a nosedive after 9/11; all the stuff about the IRA being fighters for the freedom of the "old country" became exposed as the garbage that it is and the sugary sentimentality from "Irish-Americans" became suddenly unfashionable.

None of this is to detract from the professionalism and courage of the Army. They were lions led by donkeys, with making political points being more important than solving the problem. Again.

What should have happened? Simple. There were (and are) many known members of the IRA walking around because nobody could overcome their quite legitmate fears to actually give evidence. They always said it was a war. Fine. In that case, apply the Geneva Convention - in which it quite clearly says that enemy belligerents out of uniform are subject to summary execution. And killing enemy soldiers has never been a problem, anyway.

In other words, find all known members and shoot them. And when some more come out of the woodwork, shoot them as well. Keep doing this until people realise it is bad for the health to fight the British Army.

I don't know the figures, but am quite sure that IRA financing from the USA took a nosedive after 9/11

Man, the US is evil. We're the cause of everything. Just goes to show though, when you're the best, everyone tries as hard as they can to tear you down. Its not unlinke a game of King of the Hill.

Um, Mac, snark doesn't contradict the fact that Noraid did provide quite a lot of support to people who blew up non-combatants. It wasn't the United States which was evil, support for the IRA was not government policy, but plenty of contributors to Noraid ought to have sleepless nights for the rest of their lives.

The British media also helped by printing top secret reports, every troop movement and pullout announcement with time tables for the bad guys to see. They also repeatedly blamed ALL the problems in that area of the world on U.S. foreign policy. They said the U.K. shouldn't be a puppet for the U.S. to use their troops as cannon fodder. The English MSM generally made the Brits look like twits.

Hmmm..that seems awfully familiar, the MSM undermining the military efforts and reporting to the enemy for reporting's sake.

when an army is inoccupation, the movements are pretty obvious.

The somaili's didn't need more then a few kids with cell phones
to watch movement of the Rangers in mogadishu, and with
the tendency to outsource, there are numerous civilians
who see the patterns of movement in camp.

and who are the british losing Basra to?
Who is the successful enemy there?

Does this mean the next time a British general gets snotty about how damn good the British are because of their extensive experience in this or that area - and how heavy handed and yokel-ish the Americans are .. we can take it with a grain of salt?

It comes down to the run down of the UK armed services by past and present governments, with us no longer having the troop numbers or the tools to do the job properly, and the military leadership meekly following their political masters wishes(few if any Helicopters/UAV's to enable us to be more pro-active and Land Rovers that are death traps for those using them) The US has adapted to the situation using improved equipment and tactics

Prime Minister Blair talked big but spent little, jumping ship before the shit hit the fan in Basra,leaving our armed forces in a shameful situation.

Mike:

Yup. Quite right. It was not American government policy to fund the IRA. It wasn't policy to stop it either; not with "Irish-American" votes at stake.

So British soldiers and policemen died to keep not British politicians in power (one expects politicians to sacrifice others' lives for their fat salaries, subsidised housing and expenses, after all) - but to keep American politicians in THEIR seats.

And of course when the sort of thing that had been happening for decades in Britain came to New York (admittedly on a larger scale) - well then, all of a sudden things changed.

Truly it has been said that nations don't have friends, only allies.

So what do you think went wrong here?

They're not shooting up enough civilians. That seemed to work well enough in Ireland.