Brits Go French, And for What?

The UK Times (hat tip: BryanD) reports that British soldiers didn't engage in the Battle of Basra because they'd made a secret deal with Moqtada al-Sadr to stay out of Basra.

And now, the infamous al-Sadr is planning to tell his militia to disband.

This means that

• once our Republic's most reliable military allies, the Brits now look like paper tigers.
• the importance of American military power for global stability is once again evident.
• calls from the left for our Republic to engage a more international consensus now look extremely fishy.

Note this well: the Iraqi central government and its American allies took back Iraq, including Basra, with essentially no contribution from the second largest foreign force in Iraq (not counting Iran, of course, since they're not there officially and fight on the wrong side).

Senator Obama, are you listening?