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Threading the needle: UN and the Iraqi
occupation
By Ian Williams
(Posted
with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
Well-spun by US and British press handlers, the
wire services announced the unanimous passage of UN
Security Council Resolution 1511 as a victory for
American diplomacy. And so it was, in the sense that a
bald man winning a hair brush in a raffle could claim a
victory.
Last week's resolution called on the
US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq to return
governing authority to the people of that country "as
soon as practicable" In addition, the council urged
member states to contribute to a multinational force in
Iraq to maintain security under a unified command until
the establishment of a representative government, at
which time its mandate would expire. The Security
Council will review the requirements and mission of the
force within one year.
The Bush administration
did finally get their resolution, but the question is,
can they do anything with it? The short answer is "not a
lot". The White House did not seek this resolution
because they felt a need for moral and legal absolution
and approbation from the United Nations. It wanted it as
a means to four specific goals: to coax more troop
contributions from reluctant governments; to coax more
cash for Iraqi reconstruction; to coax Kofi Annan to
return UN civilian staff to Iraq; and perhaps most of
all, reinforced by the previous three, to persuade the
bulk of Iraqis that they weren't really occupied at all.
It is highly unlikely to secure any of those
goals. On the other hand, it contains so many verbal
concessions, and pledges for a rapid transition to Iraqi
self-governance, that, even if they are thoroughly
hedged in substance, the US has put itself ineluctably
on a slippery slope to a more genuinely multilateral
approach. The slope is of course helpfully greased with
facts on the ground in Iraq, and impending votes on the
ground in the US.
The key issue for which
Russia, France, and Germany had been holding out was a
timetable for a constitution, elections, and
independence, and for the possibility of handing over
power before the whole process was finished. They seem
to have won the latter point, more as a hypothesis than
a promise, and they ended up with a timetable for a
timetable. The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) must
present a timetable for constitution and elections by
December 15.
The resolution as
theology
The obsessive - and self-defeating -
refusal of the US to hand over the reins, or even to
promise when and how it would do so, almost scuppered
the deal, and by the end it almost looked as if there
had been a team of theologians and metaphysicists on the
drafting team.
How else can you explain almost
self-mocking statements such as clause 4 which
"Determines that the Governing Council and its ministers
are the principal bodies of the Iraqi interim
administration, which, without prejudice to its further
evolution, embodies the sovereignty of the State of Iraq
during the transitional period until an internationally
recognized, representative government is established and
assumes the responsibilities of the Authority."
How a body can "embody" sovereignty when, even
as the resolution was being presented, the US was
telling it that there would be 10,000 Turkish troops
entering its territory despite the stated wishes of the
IGC, and indeed despite the opinion of most Turks? "They
have the right to make their views known," a sponsoring
diplomat declared in explanation, which as sovereignty
goes, does not really go very far.
Equally, the
preamble which claims to be "underscoring that the
sovereignty of Iraq resides in the State of Iraq,
reaffirming the right of the Iraqi people freely to
determine their own political future and control their
own natural resources", does not really sit well with
the determination to privatize anything in sight and
remove barriers to foreign ownership while dispensing
vastly overpriced contracts to US Republican Party
contributors.
The resolution also "emphasized"
that the international board of supervisors for the Iraq
Development Fund should be hurried up. The small print
neglected to mention that the IMF, World Bank, and
others have been refusing to take part in the face of
Paul Bremer's refusal to let them really supervise the
fund instead rubber-stamping the accounts, Wall Street
style.
A multinational occupation?
It
is a measure of the lack of mandate in the resolution
that it could not even order the UN Secretary General to
send civilian personnel back to Iraq, but "requests" him
to do so, "as circumstances permit". And Secretary
General Kofi Annan solemnly promised to do that while
almost visibly crossing his fingers behind his back and
thanking them for the "flexibility" they granted, after
he had almost mutinied the week before. "I shall do my
utmost," he said, "bearing in mind the constraints on
building up the required capacity, and my obligation to
care for the safety and security of United Nations
staff."
So, as long as bombs are going off, and
internationals are being shot at, the UN's "vital role"
is likely to be at a standstill. Or there would have to
be some serious vitality in the role to make it
worthwhile for staff to risk their lives. Which is where
the resolution will fail. By maintaining the reality of
occupation, despite the theological niceties, the US is
guaranteeing continuing resistance (or terrorist
activity, pick your own vocabulary) and making it very
unlikely that troop contributors will come rushing, even
for what is now a multilateral force.
For a
start, the force just happens to have the same command
chain as before. Donald Rumsfeld does not induce
automatic feelings of cuddly multilateralism in most of
the world. Even so, the multinational force must report
back to the Security Council. Its mandate has to be
reviewed within a year and runs out when a
representative government is established.
There
are some dangerous implications that slipped by in the
resolution. Diplomats did not seem to notice that as
David Kay's recent report acknowledged that there were
no signs of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq,
some bright State Department lawyer slipped into the
preamble the "reaffirmation" not only of other Iraq
resolutions, but "including resolution 1373 (2001) of 28
September 2001, and other relevant resolutions".
Resolution 1373 was passed two weeks after the World
Trade Center attacks, and in effect declared that the US
was acting in self-defense in going after the Taliban.
One cannot help suspecting an attempt at retrospective
justification since clearly the WMD gambit leaves a
little to be desired, factually and legally.
In
a similar context, the paranoid, reasonably so or
otherwise, should also watch clause 19, which "calls
upon Member States to prevent the transit of terrorists
to Iraq, arms for terrorists, and financing that would
support terrorists, and emphasizes the importance of
strengthening the cooperation of the countries of the
region, particularly neighbours of Iraq, in this
regard". We may hear some more of this "watch out
Damascus clause" in the near future.
Even so,
the holdouts on the Security Council probably did the
right thing by going along with the resolution. It costs
them nothing, and Washington had to make many
concessions, which although minor, must really gall some
people in the Pentagon.
Overall the resolution
is highly unlikely to get the US what it wants, and
makes many concessions. In a month or two, the US will
come back with another resolution when things don't work
out, and there will be further concessions. The election
is getting closer and even if it is called a
Multinational Force, there are still a lot of GIs stuck
in the quagmire, whose restlessness is leaking homewards
even as their term of duty is extended.
(Copyright 2003 Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted
with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
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