SPIEGEL ONLINE - February 22, 2007, 05:53 PM URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,468105,00.html THE WORLD FROM BERLIN Coalition of the Willing?
Blair's announcement that the UK will withdraw a large part of its forces from Iraq was bound to cause strong reactions. The German dailies wonder where this will leave Bush, and whether the UK is actually raising the white flag. No matter how much positive spin UK Prime Minister Tony Blair put on it, his announcement that a portion of UK forces is being withdrawn from Iraq could not help but be seen as the United States' main ally in the war pulling out -- just as US President George W. Bush has announced massive reinforcements for the American forces there. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Wednesday that the UK will withdraw about 1,600 soldiers from Iraq in the "coming months" and aims to have troop levels below 5,000 by late summer -- if the local forces can secure the southern part of the country currently under British control. The Danes also announced Wednesday they were leaving. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the 460 Danish troops in the south of the country will have left by August. He added: "We expect that the Iraqis during 2007 will take over security in southern Iraq." Like other commentators around the world, Germany's papers Thursday felt that Blair's decision was -- with an eye to his place in the history books -- linked to his imminent departure from office. The one thing everyone agreed on was that the announcement could not come as welcome news to Bush. The left-of-center Berliner Zeitung writes: "Every mention of the 'coalition of the willing' reminds us that there is not much left of the international 'willing' troops in Iraq. After the declaration yesterday from the British and the Danes that they would withdraw, the coalition actually now exists only on paper, and the expression has become a synonym for political and military miscalculation. It has already been a synonym for violating international law for a long time. ... "Bush was clearly not even in the position to persuade his allies Tony Blair and Anders Fogh Rasmussen to delay their statements until after the next round of voting on Iraq in Congress. The news comes at a time when the current US offensive appears to even be leading to an increase in violence in Iraq -- and the withdrawal announcements from London and Copenhagen sound more than ever like declarations of surrender." The center-right daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: "Blair is under pressure. After all, it was the military leadership which recently saw the British presence as a problem -- and we don't need to mention what the general public thinks. Blair has not fulfilled the hopes of the military -- the scope of the withdrawal is not large enough and the time schedule is too imprecise. "One can rule out that his motive was to do a favor for his presumed successor, Gordon Brown -- the animosity between the two is too great for that. It probably has more to do with the fact that the situation in Basra does not correspond to the images of civil war coming from Baghdad. And the fact that the security forces -- which are infiltrated by Shiites -- have 'proved' themselves as capable of keeping order." The business daily Financial Times Deutschland writes: "The withdrawal of 1,600 soldiers that Blair announced yesterday is above all a clear message to the British at home: The security situation in the south of Iraq, where the UK's troops are stationed, has improved so much that fewer foreign soldiers will be needed there in the future. It's a first message of success, then, rather than capitulation. "Whether Blair's withdrawal suits Bush is questionable. Many war-weary American television viewers will ask why their own boys have to keep fighting when their most important allies are leaving. For Bush as well as Blair, it will come down to whether they can convince their voters of their interpretation of the facts: that the situation in Iraq is difficult but not hopeless." The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: "If Blair cannot leave behind a stable and democratic Iraq, as he had once imagined it, he wants to at least resign having partly kept his promise that British troops would not be bogged down for the long term in a civil war in Iraq. ... "If Bush and the British are lucky, they will manage the withdrawal in good time. For Bush and the Americans, however, their own withdrawal operation will become much more difficult. The US president has no hope of being able to bring his troops back home in the foreseeable future. If he did so, Iraq would probably sink into civil war and the whole Middle East region would fall into new chaos. Bush has to worry much more about his place in the history books than Blair." -- David Gordon Smith, 5 p.m. CET +++ ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Something is new at Yahoo! Groups. Check out the enhanced email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/kOt0.A/gOaOAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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