Deserting the Sinking Ship

Per the AP, Bulgaria and Ukraine are pulling their 1,250 troops out of Iraq within the month. This is a telling paragraph:

In the months after the March 2003 invasion, the multinational force numbered about 300,000 soldiers from 38 countries. That figure is now just under 24,000 mostly non-combat personnel from 27 countries. The coalition has steadily unraveled as the death toll rises and angry publics clamor for troops to leave.

I wonder what they call the Coalition of the Willing in the White House these days. Probably "cowards" and "terrorist lovers" or something.

Later on in the article, we see that practically every country still left in Iraq is mulling a way to get out:

Underscoring mounting opposition in nearly all coalition countries, a poll published in Japan's Asahi newspaper this week showed 69 percent of respondents opposed extending the mission, up from 55 percent in January. No margin of error was given.

Japan's Kyodo News service reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet would decide Dec. 8 to allow its 600 troops to stay for another year, but it could decide later to withdraw troops around May.

A British drawdown would be the most dramatic.

Although Prime Minister Tony Blair's government insists there is no timetable and British forces will leave only when Iraqi troops can take over, Defense Secretary John Reid suggested last month that a pullout could begin "in the course of the next year."

South Korea, the second-largest coalition partner after Britain, is expected to withdraw about 1,000 of its 3,200 troops in the first half of 2006. The National Assembly is likely to vote on the matter this month.

Italy's military reportedly is preparing to give parliament a timetable for a proposed withdrawal of its 2,800 troops. Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has said it plans to withdraw forces in groups of 300, but in accordance with the Iraqi government and coalition allies.

Poland's former leftist government, which lost Sept. 25 elections, had planned to withdraw its 1,400 troops in January. The new defense minister, Radek Sikorski, visits Washington this weekend for talks on Poland's coalition plans, and the new government is expected to decide by mid-December whether to extend its mission beyond Dec. 31.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Australian Defense Force, has said about 450 troops in the southern province of Muthanna could leave by May. Australia has about 900 troops and support staff across Iraq.

Not that the coalition was ever that grand anyway, but this is a time when an actual President would be reaching out for support from abroad, rather than watching it crumble. Whatever US troop movements out of Iraq probably need to be supported with a peacekeeping force, preferably one from the region. Instead, everybody's running for the door, realizing well before our leaders that troops in this mission are becoming targets without any definable strategy.

Of course, our disdain of coalition-building in the run-up to the war assuredly affects any ability to maintain or grow a coalition after it. I don't think we'll see any peacekeepers in Iraq when we leave, just a "strong Iraqi army" which will be nowhere near as ready as we're told.