Ignoramus incorrectly identifies Iraq insurgency issue

Writing in the Guardian Jonathan Steele identifies foreign occupation as the cause of Iraq's terrorist insurgency:

Tony Blair insists British troops cannot leave Iraq until Iraq's own police and army can guarantee security. It is, of course, the same argument that George Bush uses to justify keeping close to 150,000 US soldiers in the country.

Never mind the fact that pulling foreign troops out would almost certainly improve Iraq's security, since much of the violence is directed against the occupation. Without the occupation, the insurgency would decline dramatically.

Never mind the fact the insurgency has increasingly targeted Iraqis.

Okay, just for the sake of argument, let's suppose Steele is correct, the occupation is the cause of the insurgency. Steele immediately contradicts himself:

Let us take Blair's position at face value. Has he not noticed that in Basra and the other two south-eastern provinces where British forces are based the insurgency barely exists? It is true that another British soldier died last week in Amara, a traditionally difficult town, but Basra has been quiet for months. Suicide bombers are conspicuous by their absence. Attacks on British forces are rare, and fatalities even rarer. On election day in January there was almost no violence.

So, although there are special factors which explain it, the bottom line is that Iraq's south-east has no real insurgency to speak of. Why then are British troops needed? What is the threat they are allegedly deterring, and that Iraqis cannot handle on their own? There is none. Forget the cliches about "not cutting and running". Cut the rhetoric about "the need to finish the job". British troops could pull out immediately, and neither the people of Iraq's south-east nor the people of Britain would regret it.

The insurgency is caused by the occupation, only it's not.

The insurgents couldn't take control through the ballot box – if they could have, they would have – so they're employing violence. Without the occupation the insurgents would run amock and the Shia would be compelled to defend themselves. It could get very nasty indeed. But lefties like Steele don't care, they want British forces out of Iraq now, no matter how many Iraqis would die in the turmoil that followed.