Britain's Basra Bug-out and the Future of NATO

American Thinker ^ | 02SEP07 | James Lewis

[familyop]

The British are withdrawing from Basra, leaving it to mercy of the Shiite militias. Because they are embarrassed, UK General Michael Jackson (who has a book to sell), is now trashing the Bush Administration in public.    It's just another sunny day in the NATO neighborhood.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is supposed to be a mutual defense treaty. That has been conveniently forgotten for the last several decades by Europe, where NATO simply came down to Uncle Sam assuming Europe's defense while the locals mostly went on a long, long welfare vacation -- and suicidally imported millions of Jihad supporters to work, assuaging their delicate consciences with multiculturalism.

When genocide broke out in Serbia and Kosovo, wealthy and well-armed Europe dithered for ten years before persuading Bill Clinton to send American troops. We just saw a similar thing happen in the Sudan, not that far south of Europe. Europe boasts endlessly about its new size (450 million people), centralized bureaucracy and "soft power," which comes down to self-serving arm-twisting of the United States over fake crises like global warming. It never fights even the worst evils, not even to halt genocides in Kosovo, Rwanda and the Sudan. It is "pacifist" -- meaning that it will squeeze every drop of advantage out of Saddam Hussein and the Mullahs of Iran, while expecting the United States to do the heavy lifting. And then it goes into screaming fits when the US acts to protect Europe's own vital oil supply through the Gulf. Europe is now a hysterical old woman.

Came September 11 of 2001, and the United States was attacked by Jihadi fanatics. The US expected its 60-year allies to support its efforts to fight civilizational dangers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not surprisingly, France tried to sabotage us at the United Nations. Russia smuggled out Saddam's WMD's. Germany went along with its French ally, not with the US, under Gerhard Schroeder (who shortly afterward sold out to the Russians and became a shill for Gazprom). While nobody is saying it out loud, Europe quietly aided Saddam's generals to escape Iraq and to pay for much of the current Sunni insurgency with Baath money stolen by Saddam over thirty years. The Baath Sunnis we are fighting today are financed by Europe-aided Baath escapees. Worse than that, our "allies" started a screaming propaganda campaign against the United States, which has systematically undermined our efforts in the War on Terror. They are deeply complicit in aiding the enemy.

These are not the actions of allies.

What about the Brits?  The first and last NATO ally is the United Kingdom. But the British socialist establishment has made the decision to throw in its lot with the European Union over the long term, while quietly hoping that Uncle Sam will still shoulder the burden of Europe's defense, because the EU doesn't have the stomach for it. The British retreat from Basra is simply the culmination of the BBC's anti-American hate campaign for the last few decades.  Those are not the actions of a genuine ally either.

With the British retreat from Basra for budgetary and ideological reasons, leaving the United States to defend the southern half of Iraq from Iranian infiltration,  the viability of NATO has now come to a head. It is time to ask the uncomfortable question:

Is there still any reason for the United States to consider itself bound by NATO treaty obligations? When our former allies are not so bound? 

I would say no. NATO has become just another way for Europe to exploit Uncle Sam.  In point of fact, we now rely on a  Coalition of the Willing, and Britain has just moved to the "Unwilling" column. They are walking away from the Atlantic alliance, while denying that they are doing it.  Today, Poland, Japan, Australia and Israel are more closely aligned with fundamental US objectives than Britain. There is much to be said for Coalitions of the Willing: They are much more flexible, much less expensive in terms of permanent basing costs, and allow our defense dollars to be spent for their intended purpose. The military surge in Iraq is our best hope for victory. But it is very narrowly time-limited, because we are over-invested in old and useless installations in perfidious Europe.

The sensible strategy would be for the United States to reduce its vast over-investment in European defenses. In South Korea we now only have "trip-wire" forces; we do not need more anywhere else in the world. 

There are issues on which we have mutual interests with European countries. We do not want the Russians to take over Europe. The solution is to have bilateral military agreements with the former Soviet bloc countries, from Estonia to Poland. We have important forward facilities at Ramstein in Germany, which can be handled by bilateral agreements, or moved elsewhere. Naval basing in the Mediterranean can be handled on a country-to-country basis. In the longer term, we should not view ourselves as the sole guarantors of peace in the Gulf (from which Europe gets much of its oil). We may want to keep forward bases and supplies in Israel, which is a reliable ally because it is constantly threatened. The same is true of Qatar, Diego Garcia and a few other countries. Over the coming decades, fixed bases may become less and less necessary, as we learn to rely on long-range force projection from the homeland.

On anti-missile defenses we should only work with a Coalition of the Willing. If the Czech Republic wants to defend itself from Russian and Iranian nukes, we can have a bilateral agreement with them. Let the Czechs then worry about whether EU likes its anti-missile defenses or not, and if they don't, we can put them in Estonia, or simply rely upon ship-based anti-missile defenses. Call it the "Gibraltar strategy" --- when Britain drew down its imperial overstretch, it maintained small bases in highly defensible locations, like Gibraltar. That's all it needed for many years.

A military treaty without mutuality is a fraud. Europe has been allowed to play the helpless victim for too many decades. Much of our military bureaucracy is now invested in European helplessness, in much the way social workers become professionally invested in neighborhood poverty and victimhood. But with the United States military stretched between Iraq and Taiwan, it is high time to demand reciprocity from all of our allies.

If we do not receive full reciprocity, they do not deserve our protection.

James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com/

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Bump that.

[uncbob]

Unfortunately to save ourselves from Iran etc we save them in the process

Sort of like the USA

In order to save our way of life we save the damn liberals from committing suicide

It is maddening

[rbg81]

And then it goes into screaming fits when the US acts to protect Europe’s own vital oil supply through the Gulf. Europe is now a hysterical old woman.

---

I would go a little further: Europe is a hysterical, eccentric homosexual.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

We should not be so quick to give up NATO. NATO saved the West from Soviet imperialism and is still viable.

[Candor7]

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is supposed to be a mutual defense treaty.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Oh I imagine the Brits will rue the day they left Iraq, believeing in Pelosi rather than Bush. Gordon Brown thought America would lose in Iraq. He was wrong.

And now the Brits will ned the US to help them protect their interests in the Carribean and in the SOuth Atlantic.

Not much chance of that now. Gordon Brown is a strategic , short sighted idiot.

Mr. Brown will rue the day he pulled British forces out of Iraq.

*************************************************

Ref.:

In a new outburst of antiwestern sabre-rattling, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has threatened Britain with “revenge” for the Falklands war of 1982. The belligerent Latin American leftist warned last week that his recent build-up of sophisticated Russian and Iranian weapons would be used to destroy the British fleet if it attempted to return to the South Atlantic.

Speaking on his weekly television show Alo Presidente (Hello, Mr President), Chavez denounced what he described as Britain’s “illegal occupation” of the Falklands and repeated his call for a regional military alliance against Britain and the United States.

“If we had been united in the last war, we could have stopped the old empire,” Chavez said, as he gesticulated to maps showing how Venezuelan aircraft and submarines would intercept British warships. “Today we could sink the British fleet.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890282/posts

[plenipotentiary]

This is a very silly article.

Did anyone imagine that western troops will stay in Iraq forever? We Brits want to be out because when the USA bombs Iran, we don’t want to be in a Shi’ite neighbourhoood. Also, if the Muslim tw*ts can’t sort themselves out by now, why should our boys suffer in the process?

[plenipotentiary]

PS Mr Chavez is inviting a Special Air Service message.

[familyop]

"We Brits want to be out because when the USA bombs Iran, we don’t want to be in a Shi’ite neighbourhoood."

I wouldn't mind being there, if Duncan Hunter were our President.

[bruinbirdman]

"I would go a little further: Europe is a hysterical, eccentric homosexual."

No. No. France is our new friend. Sarkozy went to GW's BBQ. They will help now.

yitbos

[Tai_Chung]

Was the NATO mutual defence clause ever invoked for Iraq?
If not, did the US request it to?

[Candor7]

PS Mr Chavez is inviting a Special Air Service message. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Good idea, but Gordon Brown is intent on amalgamating the effectiveness out of the British Military. In a few years Britain may have very little left of the SAS as Brown restructures the military into a socialist peace corps.

The tried and true ways will be lost as lessons learned.

But we know that all that high tech weaponry will make up for it. ( SARC.)

***************************

THE SPECIAL AIR SERVICE

The SAS (Special Air Service) is considered part of the infantry and a single Regular Battalion is established to carry out special operations. SAS soldiers are selected from other branches of the Army, after exhaustive selection tests.

There are two regiments of TA SAS.

*********************************

http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0129.html

[spetznaz]

Wait a minute ....this so called ‘withdrawal’ was on the books as far back as 2003-2004, yet it is been turned into some sort of ‘surrender’ by the media, the Left, and PARTICULARLY the Right. It is quite interesting. While I think the Brits have become quite soft (and many of the jokes said about the French have been just as applicable towards the Brits, more so after that whole kidnapping debacle by the Iranians), I do not think this whole Basra thing is surrender. Unless they started to ‘surrender,’ with the US’ blessing, in late 03-04.

[hinckley buzzard]

Was the NATO mutual defence clause ever invoked for Iraq? If not, did the US request it to?

It was invoked after 9/11. As for Iraq specifically I doubt it.

[Tai_Chung]

If I remember correctly, NATO gave air patrol assistance for the US, but then the United States decided not to use the NATO defense clause to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq and opted for the “coalition of the willing” instead.

Perhaps the US did not formally request for the help out of fear the Europeans would turn us down and plunge the treaty into crisis.

The other possiblity that I could see is that the US did not want the Europeans to have the satisfaction of claiming for decades that they had to bail the US out of trouble even though everyone knows the US would do the heavy lifting.

If you don’t formally request for help under the treaty, I don’t see any reason to throw the treaty out. The problem with NATO, that I can see, has nothing to do with 911, Iraq, oil or Afghanistan. The fact is that European forces are too weak and out-of-date to fight along side the United States. Even if they were willing to go to war, they would have to be isolated by themselves on specific missions as to not interfere with US troops.

My understanding is that the UK is the only Western European power that has night fighting expertise. The other Euro forces are more comfortable with daytime fighting.

[JSteff]

“We should not be so quick to give up NATO”

The author did not say to give it up, just pull back. Brittain did not give up the world but after WWI pulled back and left only a small presence at critical locations.

“NATO saved the West from Soviet imperialism and is still viable.”

What did NATO actually do substantially except provide bases and “liberty” locations for our troops?

[UKTory]

“This is a very silly article.

Did anyone imagine that western troops will stay in Iraq forever?”

Absolutely. Who the hell is this defeatist author anyway? Maybe he should go back and try to remember what the plan for Iraq was in the first place??

Wait it’s coming back to me: get rid of Saddam, allow the Iraqi’s to install a democratic government of their choosing, train up their security forces to the point where they had the ability to take responsibility for their own country and then let them do it.

British forces have carried through on the plan and handed over control in all the provinces in the South (and Basra is just the last in that process which started about a year ago) and suddenly dimwit defeatists like this author are coming out to declare defeat! Did he declare defeat and surrender when the US handed over control of three provinces in the North, I wonder?

[the scotsman]

Hard to take seriously an article when he gets the first sentence wrong...

[RightOnline]

We get out of the U.N. and NATO, completely. Halt all funding to same and watch them whither.

Anything less equates to national masochism.

[Toadman]

We Brits want to be out because when the USA bombs Iran, we don’t want to be in a Shi’ite neighbourhoood. Also, if the Muslim tw*ts can’t sort themselves out by now, why should our boys suffer in the process?

You just made the author's point:

It (Europe) never fights even the worst evils, not even to halt genocides in Kosovo, Rwanda and the Sudan. It is "pacifist" -- meaning that it will squeeze every drop of advantage out of Saddam Hussein and the Mullahs of Iran, while expecting the United States to do the heavy lifting. And then it goes into screaming fits when the US acts to protect Europe's own vital oil supply through the Gulf. Europe is now a hysterical old woman.

I respect and admire the British soldier. I've worked side by side with the Royal Marines in Southeast Asia and Iraq. However I do agree with many of the author's points. I'm not in favor of completely pulling out of NATO, but I think all parties should sit down and discuss relationships and responsibilities.

The United States has no greater friend than the UK... but I wonder if the UK's feelings are mutual.

Sorry to wax long winded but one final point is this FRiend, Iran wants nuclear weapons. Period. Anyone who thinks differently is burying their head in the sand.