Iraq and the UN
Nice piece by Fred Kaplan on Slate, drawing on the NYT for yesterday and today.
The new Prime Minister of Spain has said:
"The occupation of Iraq has been poorly managed. ... If there isn't a change and the United Nations doesn't take charge of the situation and the occupying forces don't cede political control, the Spanish troops will return and the deadline for their presence there will be June 30."
This is very carefully worded. Is it really opposed to what the Bush administration is now saying? Ceding political control--not military control: the plan seems to be for the U.S. to withdraw from high profile sites, especially Baghdad, but they will still have a substantial military presence in Iraq for some time to come.
More interesting: the UN taking over, at least to some extent, from the U.S.? This might seem anathema to Bushies. Certainly there have been conflicting stories from members of the Iraqi Governing Council. Ahmed Chalabi seems firmly opposed to UN intervention. (I suppose it's possible that he's out of date on the Bush message). The Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who may be on his way to being a de facto ruler of much of the country, is strongly in favour of a UN presence. Paul Bremer, amazingly enough, is lecturing Iraqis to accept a considerable UN presence.
"In the morning meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Bremer warned the Iraqi leaders that they risked isolating themselves and their country if they continued to snub the United Nations."
Zapatero is simply asking in public that the U.S. live up to its own (apparent) pledges.
As Kaplan says, this seems to confirm that the real Bush plan is not quite the bellicose one that many neo-cons are still sticking to. Not regime change, with a real threat of violence, in a series of countries, but multilateralism in Iraq and perhaps a re-trenching.
We haven't heard much more about a "new Helsinki Accord"--emphasizing peaceful engagement, along with a commitment to human rights, in cooperation with one's most bitter enemies, partly to encourage domestic opposition to brutal regimes.
On the other hand, the desire to cease the present occupation of Iraq, and free up troops from the U.S. elsewhere, may be a desire not to escape from the war on terror, but to prosecute it more vigorously than Bush has done so far. Zapatero has also said: "My most immediate priority is to fight all forms of terrorism." Iraq may have been a digression from the beginning.
(Update: more and more of the "coalition of the willing," or whatever, are coming to this conclusion: Besides Spain, Poland, South Korea (via Kevin Drum), and Honduras (via Jim Pinkerton)).
Perhaps the U.S. wants to have sufficient forces available to go back into Afghanistan/Pakistan.
Update: Kaplan has a little fun with Bremer. This remark shows especially clearly how much things have changed:
"Mr. Bremer pointedly warned them [Iraqi leaders] of a 'confrontation' with the United States if the Iraqis failed to invite the [U.N.] back."
Ah yes. Accept multilateralism and the U.N.--or else. Perhaps not the way one would expect a liberator to address liberatees, but still.
Kaplan's line, commenting on the view that anyone who snubs the U.N. risks being isolated: "Ah, if only Bremer had issued this warning to America's leaders a year ago."
Meanwhile, there is a database available (.pdf file) of "misleading" remarks by Bush administration officials, particularly in the months leading up to March 2003, to the effect that Saddam's Iraq threatened the U.S., or anyone outside Iraq's borders; that Saddam had WMDs, or nukes; that he had ties to Al Qaeda and 9/11, etc. (via Hit and Run).
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