Bring back our troops as soon as the war is over

It would make clear that Britain had no desire for influence in the region once Saddam was removed

If Colin Powell really wanted to start mending fences and preparing the way for the post-war settlement in Iraq, why isn't he calling in on London instead of flying straight back to Washington from Brussels? The room for fracture in the alliance with Britain after the war is every bit as great as it was in Turkey before the war, and needs as much attention.

Tony Blair has managed – narrowly – to gain majority support for the war. But there is no national consensus for the the troops to remain for a prolonged period afterwards, particularly if they become victims of continued resistance and regional resentment.

But, of course, the primary purpose of Colin Powell's trip was not to mend fences as such, even with Turkey. It was to protect his own back in Washington from charges that he had imperilled the conduct of the war by failing to get Turkey on board from the start. The visit to Ankara was designed to show that he could produce some results. The trip to Brussels – 21 meetings in a single day – was largely because he couldn't have flown the Atlantic without making some calls in Europe.

Such is the way the diplomacy of this war has been pursued from the start: in an atmosphere of such deep distrust between the Pentagon and the State Department and between the various members of President Bush's cabinet that no one among America's allies, never mind its foes, is quite sure who is talking for whom in the US administration.

During the actual course of the fighting, this is containable. In the end, the Pentagon is running the show and the British have learnt to go along with the plans, however much they might bitch about US tactics in private. If there are serious divisions, they are within the Pentagon rather than between it and other offices.

When it comes to the post-war, however, the confusion in Washington will only make it more difficult to rebuild fractured alliances. It could also force all the nascent disagreements between Washington and London out into the open. The Foreign Secretary has already made it clear that Britain does not share Washington's concerns over Syria and Iran. Tony Blair has made it pretty plain (until he was rebuffed by President Bush in Camp David) that he wants the UN to play a central role in the restructuring of Iraq.

His antennae are right. If the Pentagon has grossly misread the motivations of the Iraqis in the war, they stand to make even bigger errors after it. The length of the war makes the task of rebuilding all the greater. The nationalist response of the Iraqis to a foreign invasion makes a military presence to undertake it all the more unacceptable. The population may, indeed will, welcome the overthrow of Saddam Hussein when it is finally achieved, but it will resent the means by which it was accomplished. The sight of foreign governors riding round in jeeps managing the civil administration will grate as each week goes by, the more so should terrorist acts bring a military clampdown.

There is nothing in this for the British. We will have to serve US military plans in peace as in war, patrolling the streets, enforcing military regulations. Our troops will be associated with America's. We will be seen through the Arab world as imperialists, not liberators. If we gain contracts, we will be viewed as carpetbaggers. If we carve out a particular area to run, this will serve only to confirm our territorial ambitions.

"We're here to show the Iraqis that we want to help them," said an enthusiastic British officer interviewed near Basra the other day, "and to reassure them that we're here for the long haul." Nice sentiments but, if this is what we've been telling our troops, entirely wrong-headed. It may be uncomfortable to face after all our rhetoric of liberation, but the Iraqis don''t seem to want foreign troops on their soil over the long haul.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't commit ourselves to aiding reconstruction. But not through the military and not as a prolongation of the invading coalition. And not, frankly, as the junior party of a US-led programme that has already chosen its military governors and awarded some of the major contracts to its favoured firms.

The best course for Britain at this moment is for Tony Blair to announce, at the appropriate moment, that he intends to bring back the troops within a set time, say a month after the end of the war. Britain, he should say, will participate fully in reconstruction. It is prepared to set aside the funds. It will provide, goods, expertise and policemen. But it believes that the administration should be a civil one, not military, and it wishes the reconstruction to be organised through the offices of the UN and other international institutions.

It would be a pretty shocking statement to the Pentagon. But it would, in one decision, make clear that Britain joined this enterprise in order to remove the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to world peace; that it had no desire for influence, business or a military presence in the region after this was achieved; and, after all the rows and divisions of the pre-war build-up, that it was prepared to throw itself whole-heartedly into multilateralism for the peace.

It would be right for the British, it would be right for the international community and, in the end, it would be right for the Iraqis.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk