It is with great pride and happiness that the sovereign nation of Iraq has relieved the security sub-contractors to whom they had involuntarily sub-contracted the task of maintaining law and order of responsibility for one of their 18 provinces:

Britain has handed over responsibility for security in one of Iraq’s 18 provinces to local forces for the first time since the country was invaded.

An agreement transferring power in Muthanna was signed by Major General John Cooper, who commands coalition forces in southern Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who was present, said the handover “will bring happiness to all Iraqis”.

It ended the permanent presence of coalition troops in the province.

But then we come to the caveats:

The numbers involved in the handover were small – just 700 British and Australian soldiers.

Yes, this is a province where maintaining law and order is not much of an issue:

Muthanna, a sparsely populated desert area with a population of little over half a million, was chosen as the first because it has been one of the quietest areas of the country.

This “proud day for the Iraqi Security Forces and the Iraqi government” is more of a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Or not. Even on this proud day, festooned with all manner of fine rhetoric on both sides, we were not willing to say that we are confident the dress rehearsal will ever lead to an opening night:

However, the British and US governments hope the move will mark the beginning of a process which will eventually allow them to return the entire country to the Iraqis.

Best we could do, huh? We hope this will turn out to be the first step?