After suffering under occupation for over 50 years, the brutal and hated occupiers have finally withdrawn from peaceful Iceland:

The United States, which had assured Iceland's defence for decades, stunned the country in March when it announced that it would be closing its bases on the island, withdrawing its F-15 fighters and thousands of servicemen in the space of just six months.

This bombshell was dropped in a single telephone call from an underling at the State Department, followed by a letter from the US ambassador.

Iceland, with just 300,000 people scattered over a landmass larger than Ireland, has never had a military of its own in modern times.

The country has fewer than 1,000 policemen, most of them unarmed, and two civilian coastguard ships.

The closest thing it has to a military is a civilian "crisis response unit", which performs peacekeeping duties overseas. But that has just 50 men.

The United States is still legally pledged to defend Iceland from attack, but it now insists that it can do this from a distance.

Within the Icelandic government, the brutally swift American pullout has sparked a debate about whether their remote, wealthy little island needs defences.

To Geir Haarde, the prime minister, the answer is a clear "yes".

"We cannot allow ourselves just to sit back and think that nothing is ever going to happen here," he said.

"Brutally swift American pullout" smells like cut-and-run to me.