Denmark pulling out of Iraq

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced on Wednesday that Denmark is pulling its 430 troops out of Iraq. They did this the same day that Tony Blair in Britian announced the Britian was reducing its troop levels in southern Iraq.

We talked about this in my Danish Politics class. The reason for the pullout is basically based on the domestic political climate here in Denmark currently, and has really nothing to do with a military decision or something like that.

The current government here is a coalition of the parties on the right. Fogh Rasmussen is from Vestre, which is the largest Danish party and center-right in ideology. They have a coalition government with the Conservative party. Their government is also supported by the Danish People's Party, which is a very nationalistic party. So the government is run from the right.

They have been the coalition in government since 2001, and supported the Iraq War from the start. The left-wing parties were initially against it. Then after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished", the UN Security Council passed a resolution regarding helping rebuild Iraq. At that point, the left-wing parties in Denmark supported troops in Iraq to help rebuild.

Late last year the left wing parties in Denmark changed their position in opposition to Denmark getting bogged down further in the Iraq War, and wanted Danish troops out. This was a politically smart move for them, because public opinion is against the war. The Social Democrats (2nd biggest party) would like to regain control of the government, and opposing the Iraq War would help that. It was an issue they could attack Anders Fogh Rasmussen's party with.

Basically, Vestre wants to keep control of the government and they are diffusing the campaign issue now before it becomes a problem for them. The justification is that things in southern Iraq are "getting better", so Denmark has fulfilled its agreement. This is painted in contrast to Italy/Japan who just withdrew last year without finishing the job. They are sending 200 new troops to Afghanistan, because they don't want the impression that they are giving up on the war on terror.

From a small-country perspective, they need to have strong allies if they want to have influence. It isn't in Denmark's interest to alienate the US, so thats the reason for the increase to Afghanistan. Politics in Denmark is all based on compromise, and I think their foriegn policy is kind of being run the same way. They want to have good relations with the US/Britian, but still get out of an unpopular war. So they compromised and sent more troops to Afghanistan.