Breaking in or breaking out?

Until reading this story, I didn't think the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq could have gone any worse. And I never suspected that British troops would be the ones to bring the conflict to a head:

Hundreds of Iraqi civilians and policemen, some waving pistols and AK-47s, rallied Wednesday in the southern city of Basra to denounce "British aggression" in the rescue of two British soldiers.

The Basra governor threatened to end all co-operation with British forces unless Prime Minister Tony Blair's government apologizes for the deadly clash with Iraqi police. Britain defended the raid...

Some protesters met with the Basra police chief, Gen. Hassan Sawadi, to demand a British apology, said police spokesman Col. Karim al-Zaidi. Heavily armed soldiers and police watched the protest but didn't intervene. Al-Zaidi said the demonstration was arranged spontaneously by some policemen, not by the force or its commander.

Several hours after the protest, Basra's provincial council held an emergency meeting and voted unanimously "to stop dealing with the British forces working in Basra and not to co-operate with them because of their irresponsible aggression on a government facility."

Note that the question at this point isn't whether the raid was justified as necessary to save the soldiers. Even if that's true, the effect of the raid only points to a deeper issue: any potential gains from continued occupation are diminishing with time, as even the security forces and placeholder governments put together by the occupiers are eager to turn against the foreign presence.

As pointed out by the article, the domestic security forces which are supposed to take over responsibility for Iraq are largely controlled by extreme groups which are looking to expel the occupiers. That means that the domestic troops can pick fights (such as by kidnapping the soldiers) and put the foreign troops in a no-win situation: the occupiers can either allow the kidnapping to happen and lose any remaining morale or sense of purpose, or they can fight back and turn the entire local population (including their own successors) against them all the more.

There may have been some chance to avoid this problem from the start of the occupation if it had been well planned. (Pause for laughter.) But that chance would have required thoroughly training a set of local troops without extremist infiltration. That opportunity was scrapped in favour of trying to recruit large numbers, training and loyalty be damned.

As a result, the occupiers now have two choices: they can try to start over, scrapping the existing security forces and trying to rebuild them without the same extremist presence; or they can recognize that there's no chance of salvaging anything resembling a democratic vision, and slink away as quietly as possible.

Needless to say, public opinion (in both Iraq and the occupying states) won't allow for option number one. Which makes the kidnapping the first step in an eventual withdrawal - whether or not either Bush or Blair wants to admit it.