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'Tehran Will Be Delighted to Accept the Gift of Basra'

British troops withdrew from Basra Monday just as US President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq. German commentators are scathing of both the British and American strategy.

Monday was a day of symbols in Iraq. Just as British forces were making their withdrawal from Basra in the south, US President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Bush, who was accompanied by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, held talks at a US air base with Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. The Pentagon described the meeting, which was Bush's third secret trip to Iraq in four years, as a "war council."

In an unusual move, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani also met with Bush at the air base. It was only the third time Maliki, who is Shiite, had visited the Sunni-dominated province, where violence has recently abated after Sunni tribal leaders and former insurgents joined forces with US troops to fight al-Qaida and other extremists.

Addressing troops at the base, Bush insisted any decision to withdraw troops would be "based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground, not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media. ... When we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure."

Bush said that Petraeus and Crocker had told him that "if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces." He did not specify how many troops might be withdrawn or any possible timetable for withdrawal.

Monday's visit came just days before Petraeus and Crocker are due to deliver a much-anticipated report to Congress on the situation in Iraq and the success of Bush's "surge" strategy. It also coincided with the withdrawal of British troops from the southern city of Basra, which has caused tension between the UK and US.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted Monday that the pullout was not a defeat. He told the BBC that the withdrawal was "pre-planned and organized" and UK forces would take an "overwatch" role -- in other words, troops would not go out unless requested by Iraqi authorities, but they would still train and mentor Iraqi security forces. Brown said the number of British troops in Iraq would remain roughly the same, and that they could "re-intervene," if necessary.

On Monday, 550 British soldiers handed Basra palace, their former base, over to Iraqi control and joined 5,000 troops at the UK's last base near Basra airport. The pullout comes at a time when the US and UK are engaged in a war of words over Iraq. US media commentators have been critical of the British withdrawal in recent weeks, while senior British soldiers criticized the American strategy in Iraq in much-publicised remarks over the weekend.

Commentators writing in Germany main newspapers Tuesday had little positive to say about either the American or the British strategy.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Bush's trip to the front is meant as a signal, directed partly toward to the troops fighting in the desert, but mainly toward home. It is there, on Washington's Capitol Hill, that the decisive battle over this war will begin in just a few days: Almost all the Democrats and a couple of unfaithful Republicans intend to try to put an end to the US's military deployment."

"The majority of Americans lost faith a long time ago that their GIs could use armed force to impose peace in the torn-apart country, especially since Iraq's overwhelmingly Shiite government does more or less nothing to bring about the drastically needed reconciliation with the Sunnis and the Kurds. Bush is now reacting in his own way: He avoids Baghdad, absconds to the provinces and even lures Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki out of his government bunker. In western Iraq's Anbar province, which last year was still a deadly al-Qaida stronghold, the US marines have finally achieved some success. They armed the Sunni tribal leaders, forced the terrorists back and now announce: 'Mission accomplished' -- at least for the time being."

"The only thing is that even this victory won't help Bush much in his battle at home. No one can seriously claim that Anbar is a model for all of Iraq. One thing is for sure: Bush won't give up. But for a long time now he has lacked the allies -- both in Baghdad and Washington -- that he needs to persist in his mission for much longer. There's not much time left for a fourth presidential trip to Iraq."

The conservative Die Welt, in a piece headlined "Brown Versus Bush," laments the British decision to withdraw its troops from Basra:

"Britain could have waited another 10 days (until Petraeus officially hands over his Iraq report to Bush) before withdrawing to their base at the Basra airport. Instead, Brown chose to follow his own British way in order to boost his own popularity at the cost of trans-Atlantic relations. His defensive maneuver came as quite a contrast to that which took place on Monday in Anbar province. The province's capital Ramadi was, until recently, an al-Qaida-infested hole for the Americans and for any peace-loving Iraqi. But since springtime, this city in the 'Sunni Triangle' has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis thanks to the … local sheiks and civilian leaders who have banded together with the Americans to rid the city of al-Qaida."

"They have been so thorough that President Bush could risk landing there on Monday. Ramadi is a huge plus for the 'surge' strategy. By acting on his own in Iraq, Gordon Brown re-focused the Iraq debate on withdrawal, when perseverance is actually called for."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"The end of the physical presence of British troops in Shiite Basra has great symbolism, which makes Prime Minister Gordon Brown's justification for the withdrawal look like nothing more than an embarrassing rhetorical contortion. The withdrawal may have been planned and organized. But it does not look much like a success story, happening as it did during the night while a curfew prevailed. That makes the supposed withdrawal seem more like a retreat, if not an actual defeat."

"Such a verdict would more accurately reflect the situation in southern Iraq, the mood in the United Kingdom and the debate of the past months, which ended up this weekend in a bitter British-American reckoning. London has failed, and completely -- this is the verdict that Brown now has to hear, from the British opposition and from the ranks of his American ally. The assessment is partially justified, but it is also partially wrong: Washington is certainly more 'responsible' for the situation in Iraq than London."

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"Even when the British were right in the center of (Basra), they couldn’t prevent the open struggle between the Shiite militias for control of the oil-rich province. The British have handed over the city to an Iraqi administration and security forces that have long become an instrument of the militia. They are now waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum."

"With all of these Shiite militias, Iran's influence is growing in the region. It remains to be seen how big a mistake it was not to include Tehran in the search for a political solution in Iraq... Tehran will certainly be delighted to accept the gift of Basra. But whether the mullahs will become a force for order or chaos in future, depends on the US attitude to Iran."

"The British diversionary tactics of recent days have been bizarre, with the former commander of British forces in Iraq Mike Jackson describing Washington's Iraq policy as 'intellectually bankrupt' -- as if Tony Blair were dragged into the Iraq War against his will."

-- David Gordon Smith, 11 a.m. CET