From Juan Cole

I don’t think the British military is going to be in Iraq much longer. Certainly no longer than Tony Blair is PM. If the chief of the army is demonstrating this sort of rank insubordination toward the prime minister, who has supported a continued British military role in Iraq, it is a sign that the prime minister is a lame duck and that there are indications that his successor will draw down the British troops in Basra.

Source: Informed Comment

Of course,  what I heard late yesterday on the radio is quintessential political backtracking and “yeah , but” and “oh,  you took me out of context” so that now this is being spun as actually in agreement with Blair.  I’ll have to go hunting for what writers are saying about all this rush to “fix” what the general said.

It’s kind of hard to “re-spin” the commander’s assessment that “we’re making things worse”.

When IK heard this yesterday on NPR (the “retractions” and “contextualizing” and the commander’s “clarifications”,  I smelled it immediately.