To quit or not to quit Iraq, that is the question--and it will face Gordon Brown at the end of June when he succeeds Tony Blair as British prime minister.

To quit or not to quit Iraq, that is the question--and it will face Gordon Brown at the end of June when he succeeds Tony Blair as British prime minister. For the first time in a decade, the Labour party is regularly behind in the polls, and might lose the general election due in 2010. There are a thousand reasons for this unpopularity, but in the party's view Blair's decision to send troops to Iraq counts above everything else. "Troops Out!" has been a favorite slogan of the Left in pretty well all times and places. The British commentariat agree that this is the obvious way for Brown to distance himself from Blair and seem a new man, in the process gratifyingly poking the Americans in the eye. Still, nobody knows what the canny Brown really thinks about the war or foreign policy in general. British troops are anyhow due to be cut in the near term from 7,100 to 5,500. Any change in these numbers will provide at last the measure of Brown.