The last governor walked backwards up the steps to his plane, his pistol drawn...

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http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2006/November/opinion_November10.xml§ion=opinion&col=

Hell on Earth

BY SIMON JENKINS

3 November 2006

BRITISH ministers landing in Aden in the 1960s were told always to make a reassuring speech. In view of the Arab insurrection, they should give a ringing pledge, "Britain will never, ever leave Aden". Britain promptly left Aden, in 1967 and a year earlier than planned. The last governor walked backwards up the steps to his plane, his pistol drawn against any last-minute assassin. Locals who had trusted him and worked with the British were massacred in their hundreds by the fedayeen.

Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, was welcomed to London by the BBC last week with two documentaries recalling past British humiliations at the hands of Arabs, in Aden and Suez. It was not a message Salih wanted to hear. His government is retreating from its position in May, when it said that foreign forces should withdraw from 16 out of 18 provinces, including the south, by the end of this year. Tony Blair rejected this invitation to go and said he would "stay until the job is done". Salih would do well to remember what western governments do, not what they say.

Despite Suez and Aden, British foreign policy still lurches into imperial mode by default. An inherited belief in Britain’s duty to order the world is triggered by some upstart ruler who must be suppressed, based on a vague desire to seek "regional stability" or protect a British interest. As Martin Woollacott remarks in his book After Suez, most people at the time resorted to denial. To them, "the worst aspect of the operation was its foolishness" rather than its wrongness. When asked by Montgomery what was his objective in invading the canal zone Eden replied, "to knock Nasser off his perch". Asked what then, Eden had no answer.

As for Iraq, the swelling chorus of born-again critics are likewise taking refuge not in denouncing the mission but in complaining about the mendacity that underpinned it and its incompetence. As always, turncoats attribute the failure of a once-favoured policy to another’s inept handling of it. The truth is that the English-speaking world still cannot kick the habit of imposing its own values on the rest, and must pay the price for its arrogance. snip

This country (Iraq) has been turned by two of the most powerful and civilised nations on Earth into the most hellish place on Earth. Armies claiming to bring democracy and prosperity have brought bloodshed and a misery worse than under the most ruthless modern dictator. This must be the stupidest paradox in modern history. Neither America nor Britain has the guts to rule Iraq properly, yet they lack the guts to leave. Blair speaks of staying until the job is finished. What job? The only job he can mean is his own.