According to the UK Independence Party website UKIP will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:
UKIP believes that our forces should not be maintained indefinitely in Iraq. As senior officers have said, we are now becoming part of the problem. There is no long term victory to be had.
We should not ‘cut and run’ but should continue to downsize our force and withdraw in an orderly fashion as soon as we can.
Our military presence in Afghanistan is part of a NATO mission, rightly supported by the U.K. in order to assist reconstruction there. However it has turned into a long running battle. The history of such wars is unpromising – even the Soviet Union was defeated there. There is no attainable military aim achievable by the size of forces NATO is willing to contribute. We should re-appraise our operations there, ensure the goals are achievable goals, that a single achievable mission is agreed (rather than current multi missions) and review our commitment.
The Middle East as a whole is an area in constant turmoil that spawns international terrorism, threatens the West’s energy supplies, and may shortly pose a nuclear threat as well. Apart from diplomacy, the UK has no independent ability for military action in the area. Despite the unsustainability of our present military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must be ready to consider carefully any proposed international missions if we judge that they are in our national interest. Accordingly, UKIP believes we should maintain the ability to operate in the Middle East at an appropriate scale.
I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on UK Independence Party’s The Middle East policies in the comments below?