Unsurprisingly, the Mahdi Army Claims Victory
By More evidence that Bill Petti is right. We cannot dictate how Iraqis will interpret a withdrawal from Iraq.
The British withdrew from Camp Abu Naji near Amara. They only gave the Iraqis one day notice. This short notice suggests that the evacuation was done under considerable duress; one suspects that the British position was becoming untenable because of repeated Shiite guerrilla attacks (there were only 1200 British troops there). When they left, they left behind nearly $300,000 in equipment, intending that the Iraqi police should have the use of the base.
Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers on the provincial Governing Council crowed that the Mahdi Army was the first Iraqi group to force a substantial withdrawal of Coalition troops from an Iraqi territory, according to Amit Paley. The LA Times says that the Mahdi Army boasted of having forced the British troops to leave so abruptly.
As Petti notes:
More importantly, the problem with signaling a reputation for resolve (and any other kind of signaling for that matter) is that your opponent will draw whatever conclusions (mostly favorable) they want from your actions. There is little one can do to ensure that the target of their signal gets the right message. The question I would ask the President and supporters of his policy is what outcome, short of utopian style democracy and stability in Iraq or staying forever, would ensure that our enemies do not draw negative conclusions about our resolve? It appears to me that a host of outcomes would leave much to interpretation. And if we know anything about terrorists groups (and any political actor for that matter) we know they thrive on and are schooled in the art of spin.
The claim that we need to stay in Iraq in order to demonstrate our resolve to the terrorists is garbage. It is simply not the case that the United States can withdraw “on its own terms” because we are not the ones who determine the interpretation of our actions. When the US leaves, be it in 2007 or 2031, Iraqi militants and international terrorists will declare victory and argue that the United States is weak.