As President Bush faced the cameras in Anbar province to declare that any decision to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq must be made from a position of “strength and success, not fear and failure,” British forces were congratulating themselves for their unannounced, nocturnal withdrawal from Basra to a base at the city’s airport. While the president pleads for the surge to be given time to work, Prime Minister Brown seems to be scuttling as fast as you can say Moqtada al-Sadr.

The British insist appearances are deceptive. Mr. Brown voiced pride that his soldiers had accomplished their “pre-planned and organized” retreat without loss. That the British handover to Iraqi forces began last year does not dispel the impression that the pace has been accelerated in the two months since Prime Minister Blair left office. His successor stands accused of both undermining the Bush administration’s case for the war and leaving our southern flank exposed.

It could even be said that by allowing the Iranian-backed Shia militias to consolidate their grip on Iraq’s second city, the British pull-out could jeopardize the gains of the joint American-Iraqi offensive against Al Qaeda. So what is driving the normally cautious Mr. Brown to evacuate Basra with such indecent haste? Is it really a calm assessment of the enhanced capabilities of the Iraqi security forces? Or has the British Army been “defeated,” as some officials in Washington believe?

Some truth lurks in both explanations. The British were suffering heavy casualties from increasingly sophisticated Iranian weaponry, and their numbers were too small to justify their presence in central Basra. They promise to stay at Basra Airport until next year, after which they will exercise their oversight role from Kuwait. Nobody, though, believes that once the British leave they will return, even if Basra were to descend into full-scale civil war.

The main reason for the sudden British get out of Iraq has to do with personal ambition and domestic politics. Mr. Brown is a man in a hurry. He had to wait 10 years bowing second fiddle to his more glamorous neighbor in Downing Street. Now that he is at last in charge, he wants his own mandate. The British system allows the prime minister to call an election long before the parliamentary term expires in 2010 — perhaps as early as October.

So the question in the air in London is whether Mr. Brown is getting ready to call a snap election. He is enjoying an unexpectedly prolonged honeymoon with the electors, is eager to escape from Mr. Blair’s legacy in Iraq. The argument is being made in salons around London that the timetable for the retreat from Basra is being dictated less by military necessity than by the need to clear the decks for a “snap” election.

No doubt such an early election would be a gamble. Past prime ministers have often been punished by the voters when their opportunism was too obvious. Mr. Brown has one advantage: his Tory opponents are denying themselves the chance to exploit his cut-and-run policy on Iraq and his toleration of anti-Americanism in his government. The Conservative leader, David Cameron, is so desperate to reposition his party in the mythical “center” that he has distanced himself from its traditional strengths.

Even as Mr. Brown retreats from Iraq, he is playing the patriotic card without fear of contradiction. Because the Tories are preparing to fight the next election on a platform of “green” taxes, big government, and social liberalism, Mr. Brown can dominate the issues that really worry the voters: crime, terrorism, immigration. Though clearly the parallels are not perfect, this is something for our own politicians to think about.

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In Britain at the moment, the polls favor Mr. Brown, but he is a naturally cautious politician and his lead is probably still too precarious to justify the risk of losing the majority that Labor has held since 1997. Waiting till the spring, however, is not without its own risks. The European constitution, which seemed to have been laid to rest two years ago, is back with a vengeance — now repackaged as a “reform treaty.” Mr. Brown is committed to this dubious document, and he is backing away from Mr. Blair’s promise to give the British people a referendum on it.

If the Tories were to grasp this issue, connect it with the Atlantic alliance and the global jihad, and turn the election into a vote on whether the British wish to throw in their lot with a defeatist Europe, Mr. Brown just might come unstuck. That would require of Mr. Cameron and his “liberal Conservatives” a political insight of which they have so far shown themselves incapable. But one can always hope and watch and think of the portents that Britain holds for our own rapidly approaching presidential vote.