Quote Originally Posted by Watchman
I'm starting to see why the Brits would want to pull out.
A little history couldn't hurt.

The British occupied Iraq almost one hundred years ago, in 1917. They came as 'liberators', they said; the British commander in Baghdad, Lieutenant-General Stanley Maude, issued a proclamation to that effect in English and Arabic.

Your citizens have been subject to the tyranny of strangers (..) and your fathers and yourselves have groaned in bondage. Your sons have been carried off to wars not of your seeking, your wealth has been stripped from you by unjust men and squandered in different places. It is the wish not only of my King and his peoples, but it is also the wish of the great Nations with whom he is in alliance, that you should prosper even as in the past when your lands were fertile. It is the hope and desire of the British people (..) that the Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown amongst the peoples of the Earth. Therefore I am commanded to invite you, through your Nobles and Elders and Representatives, to participate in the management of your civil affairs in collaboration with the Political Representative of Great Britain.

Within a couple of years the British occupiers were facing a serious guerilla which they tried to counter with punitive expeditions. Because they were afraid to engage in house to house combat (even though the British invading army counted 600.000 men) they decided to bomb towns from the air. The first town they bombed to smithereens was Fallujah.

In the end they couldn't 'pacify' the country, so they withdrew and left a monarch behind who would hopefully do their bidding. This monarchy was later toppled by nationalist officers who despised outside influences and wanted to unite the Arab and Muslim world against western imperialism.

Sound familiar?