LONDON — "The British have given up and they know they will be leaving Iraq soon," said Muqtada Al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi army, the country's most powerful militia group, in an interview with the Independent. "They have realized this is not a war they should be fighting or one they can win."

Every word he said is true, and most senior officers in the British Army know it. As Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the British Army, said last year, Britain "should get out (of Iraq) sometime soon."

Being prime minister is hard. Gordon Brown waited 10 years for Tony Blair to pass on the prime ministership, and no sooner does he finally inherit the job than he has to figure out a way to pull the British troops out of Iraq in the middle of the American "surge." That will not be seen as a friendly gesture by the beleaguered Bush administration.