It wasn’t too long ago the British officers were lecturing their American counterparts on the finer points of counterinsurgency. (See, for instance, this article.) You don’t hear many such lectures any more. In part this is due to the signal success that the U.S. armed forces have been enjoying lately in Iraq. But it is also due to the growing realization that the Brits have, as they might put it, blotted their copybook. Or, to put it into Americanese, they screwed up.

The London papers are full today of the latest screw-up to come to light: Apparently British forces cut a deal with the Mahdist Army not to enter Basra, thus preventing them from coming to the aid of Iraqi forces when their offensive started earlier this year. American troops had to rush in to fill the void.

The Times article contains this damning passage:

Colonel Imad, who heads the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division, the most experienced division, commanded one of the quick-reaction battalions summoned to assist British-trained local forces, who faltered from the outset because of inexperience and lack of support.

He said: “Without the support of the Americans we would not have accomplished the mission because the British Forces had done nothing there.

“I do not trust the British Forces. They did not want to lose any soldiers for the mission.”

In fairness to the British soldiers, they did not craft their own rules of engagement. Those were forced on them by a casualty-averse Labor government which, since the departure of Tony Blair, has shown at best tolerance, rather than outright support, for the mission in Iraq. The Brits are still among the best allies we have, and they are increasing their efforts in Afghanistan, where they are fighting and suffering casualties. Their armed forces also remain one of the most professional in the world. But Her Majesty’s forces are suffering increasingly from budgetary neglect and political pressures from a society ever more averse to warfare. The Basra misadventure is simply one more embarrassment for an army that once wrote the book on counterinsurgency with impressive successes from Malaya to Northern Ireland.